LAS VEGAS — Religiously motivated anti-porn and anti-sex-work lobby NCOSE has filed a lawsuit aiming to shut down one of Las Vegas’ premier strip clubs, Sapphire Las Vegas.
The lawsuit also targets the Chicken Ranch, an unrelated full-service sex work establishment. The suit is part of the well-funded Washington, D.C.-based conservative group's campaign to challenge all legal sex work in Nevada.
NCOSE, formerly known as Morality in Media, announced in an Aug. 31 statement that its lawsuit against Sapphire and the Chicken Ranch had been allowed to proceed by the U.S. District Court, District of Nevada.
“In the lawsuit filed by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center (NCOSE) and Jason Guinasso, an attorney with Hutchison & Steffen, PLLC,” the NCOSE statement read, “the plaintiffs, Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2, are seeking to hold the defendants responsible for protecting the sex trade and enabling sex slavery, in violation of the 13th Amendment and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.”
NCOSE alleges that plaintiff Jane Doe #2 “was sex trafficked in Nevada through legal strip clubs, including the Sapphire Gentleman’s Club,” and NCOSE’s senior legal counsel, Christen Price, stated her belief that “prostitution is rife in these legal entities, and under federal law it is sex trafficking.”
Conflating all legal sex work with “sex trafficking” has been one of the key strategies used by NCOSE in its ambitious quest to outlaw all consensual sex work, one of the group's core goals. NCOSE has seen its operational budget balloon in the last three years thanks to a surge in tax-free donations, enabling the organization to engage in “lawfare” by using civil litigation in pursuit of its political goals.
Originally, NCOSE also planned to sue Steve Sisolak, the governor of Nevada; Aaron Ford, the state's attorney general; the city of Las Vegas; and Nevada’s Clark County and Nye County. However, the court ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue those parties.
NCOSE and its legal associate are appealing that ruling.
