YNOT – Joe Conforte, former owner of the Mustang Ranch brothel located a few miles east of Reno, Nev., has published his autobiography as an e-book. Titled Breaks, Brains & Balls: the Story of Nevada’s Fabulous Mustang Ranch, the 464-page book details Conforte’s life from his birth in a poverty-stricken Sicilian fishing village to his current residence in the lap of Rio De Janeiro luxury. [Ed. note: Conforte, a U.S. citizen, lives in exile in Brazil because he faces incarceration for a number of federal crimes if he returns to the U.S.]
“I have a very good memory, very good, and this is the way I remember it all, from watching my mother in her outdoor kitchen, squatting down to fan the fire beneath the big cooking pot with a raven’s wing, to now, in my penthouse apartment with the most beautiful young girl in Brazil for my companion,” Conforte said.
One of the most outrageous characters ever to emerge from the American west, Conforte acquired the brothel in 1967 and, with his wife, presided over the operation for nearly 30 years. He served prison terms for extortion and tax violations, but nevertheless made the Mustang Ranch the biggest and most infamous operation of its kind in the U.S.
Conforte fled the U.S. in 1991 ahead of indictments for money laundering, tax fraud, racketeering and conspiracy. He used his considerable fortune to avoid arrest in South America. In 1999, while he was in hiding from an Interpol warrant, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled he could not be extradited to the United States. That same year, U.S. authorities confiscated the Mustang Ranch, later auctioning the brothel’s buildings, furnishings and name to pay a portion of the fines levied by federal courts and the Internal Revenue Service. The 166 acres on which the ranch sat are now under the conservancy of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
“Joe’s life story might have been written by Horatio Alger on acid: the poor immigrant boy who undertakes a series of hair-raising adventures and finds his fortune in the Nevada desert,” quipped David Toll, Conforte’s publisher and co-author.
Parts of Conforte’s story have been told in newspapers, magazines, books and a Hollywood movie, Love Ranch, in which Joe Pesci portrayed Conforte.
“[In Breaks, Brains & Balls] Joe tells the story himself, all of it, and in his own bold way he tells it very well,” Toll said. “It’s a great story, and in particular a great Nevada story, straight from the man who lived it.”
Published by Gold Hill Publishing Co., the e-book is available from Amazon.com, Apple’s online bookstore, BarnesAndNoble.com and other e-book e-tailers, as well as from Conforte’s website. Readers who buy from Conforte’s site will receive a personal thank-you email from the man himself.
“Obviously he’s not able to come and sign books for people,” Toll said. “The feds would be waiting with handcuffs at the airport. So he’s making this gesture instead.”
A hardcover edition is scheduled for publication in May.
