Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Really Loves Prostitutes // The Joe Conforte Murder Story

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Joe Conforte operated several illicit brothels before successfully lobbying for the state's first legal brothel license at his famous Mustang Ranch in 1971. His career was defined by high-stakes battles with the government, including a stint in prison for extortion and a scandalous association with the shooting death of boxer Oscar Bonavena on his property. Facing mounting federal indictments for tax evasion and racketeering, Conforte fled to Brazil in 1991, where he lived as a fugitive until his death in 2019, successfully avoiding extradition for nearly three decades.

So this guy really likes hooking up with prostitutes. Now the guy's name is Conforte, and Conforte is 29 when this story starts, and he's living in Nevada. And Conforte, like I said, he really likes hookers. In fact, he likes them so much that one day in 1955, he opens up his own brothel in Wadsworth, and, you know, it's nothing fancy, it's just a series of rundown mobile trailers. But whatever, the clients don't seem to mind, you know, as long as they get to smash. But of course, there's a problem with all this. In Nevada, during this time, there's no clear law banning brothels.

So they're sort of operating in a legal gray area. But that doesn't mean police can't step in at any time and shut them down for any reason they want. And some counties are far more strict than others. So Conforte takes advantage of this. Whenever he feels like local law is about to come down on him, he'll just tow his brothel trailers to a whole. whole new county and start all over. And this scheme somehow works, and Conforte starts pulling in a ton of money, which is good because, you know, he really likes living a flashy lifestyle. Like he likes walking around wearing silk suits and driving fancy cars and whatnot. But then one day, he runs into a

bit of trouble because he catches the attention of this guy, Bill. Bill is the local district attorney. And Bill, he doesn't like Conforte at all. He doesn't like what he stands for. He feels Comforte is immoral and a bad influence for spreading prostitution around. So Bill starts targeting him, like he officially bans him from his county. And whenever Conforte ignores that ban, Bill has him arrested. Not once, but multiple times. And this, of course, pisses Conforte off.

He feels like he's just a normal businessman providing a service to the people. who want it. Why is Bill always picking on him? So Conforte decides that if Bill wants to come after him, he'll go after Bill too. And that is when he comes up with a plan. He's going to invent some dirt on Bill so that he can get leverage over him. So in 1959, he sets up this whole scheme where he has an underage girl falsely accused Bill of having intercourse with her. Then he tries to use this information to black blackmail Bill. But see, Bill, he isn't about to be blackmail. He decides to strike back. So he wires himself with a recording device, and he hits up Conforte, and he pretends to want to discuss the issues between them, and the two men agree to meet up. And then they meet up, and during this meet up, they're talking, and Conforte incriminates himself on tape, and he admits to setting the whole extortion scheme up. And so, bam, Conforte gets arrested. And he gets convicted, and in 1960, he gets sentenced to three to five years in prison.

But see, Conforte, he's not the type of guy to let prison slow him down. Even while he's locked up, he's still up to his shenanigans. Like, he turns the prison gaming room into a sophisticated casino operation, which, surprisingly, the prison staff are cool with. They let him run it and make money. And he takes this money he's making from the prison casino, and he employs a personal cook, He employs a maid.

He even hires a guy to fan him while he plays games. It's ridiculous. Now eventually, years go by, and it's now 1965, and Conforte gets out of prison. And of course, he's ready to go right back into business. But this time, he's going to play it smarter. He doesn't want a repeat of what happened before. So he starts protecting himself by building up goodwill. He builds relationships with local politicians,

He donates money to the community. He gets involved in local charities. He builds a trailer park for low-income families. He even gives out turkeys to people on Thanksgiving. And of course, local people start to like him, and he becomes the go-to guy for politicians when they want to win an election. And around this time, he buys a small brothel from another guy, and he takes it over. This time, his brothel is in a fixed location.

It's called the Mustang Ranch. And in 1971, with all this political influence he's been acquiring, he starts fighting for the legalization of his brothel. And surprisingly, this works because his brothel becomes the first legal brothel in the United States. So from here, he becomes a very popular guy, and he gets lots of attention for this. He's even featured on the cover of Rolling Stone for this. And all this is making him lots of money. Like he's pulling in millions of dollars every year. In the 70s.

But here's where things start to get a little complicated for Conforte. For some reason, he decides to expand his empire and get into the boxing promotion business. So he starts a boxing promotion company and he signs a heavyweight boxer. This guy, Oscar. And Conforte, he starts promoting Oscars fights and thus he starts. making even more money. Then, Oscar starts acting a fool. At one point, Oscar starts getting close to Conforte's wife.

This woman, Sally. Like, Sally and Oscar, they start having dinners together that look a little suspicious. And these nights out together, they start up rumors that these two are having an affair, and people start talking. But then, Oscar makes it even worse. makes it even worse. He starts bragging around town that he wants to marry Sally and then take over Conforte's brothel and boxing promotion empire. Now eventually, all these rumors and trash talking get back to Conforte, and he decides that Oscar has to go. So he goes to him and he offers him

a bunch of money to fuck off and leave the country. But Oscar's like, nah, I'm not doing that. Then one day, in 1976, Oscar shows up to the Mustang ranch, all aggressive, looking to confront Conforte about their beef. And supposedly, Conforte had ordered the security guard there to shoot Oscar on site if he ever showed up causing a problem. So, blam, the security guard shoots Oscar, and Oscar, unfortunately, doesn't survive. And pretty quickly, police arrived. They're responding to the shooting. And bam, the security guard. guard gets arrested. And later the security guard pleads guilty to manslaughter and he gets sentenced to two years in prison. And so, depending on how you look at it, Conforte may have just

gotten away with murder. But then, in 1977, bam, Conforte gets arrested and convicted of tax evasion. And he's sentenced to 20 years in prison and he's ordered to pay about $18 million in back taxes. But before he has to report to prison, he flees the U.S. and he goes to live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Apparently, Brazil has an extradition treaty with the U.S. during this time, but they don't extradite for this particular crime, apparently. So he leaves the U.S., but Sally, his wife, stays in the U.S., and she files for bankruptcy so that the IRS can't come in and seize the Mustang ranch. so ultimately the brothel stays open. And while he's still in Brazil, Conforte is still running the Mustang ranch from behind the scenes

and he's funneling the profits back to himself. And as another workaround to keep the IRS from seizing this place, Conforte eventually sells the ranch to his attorney while still calling the shots from behind the scenes and collecting all the profits. Until. Until, bam, the IRS arrests Comforte's attorney. And they threatened to charge him with all kinds of stuff unless he flips on Conforte.

And eventually, he does flip. He flips on Conforte. But the thing is, oh, Conforte, he's still chilling in Brazil, living his best life. And the Brazilian government still won't extradite him. And so from here, he never gets caught because he never leaves. because he never leaves Brazil. And then in 2019, he dies in Brazil, basically of old age, having never gone to prison for his final crimes.