NOLANVILLE, TX — They were arrested and charged with prostitution after giving undercover investigators lap dances, and now two exotic dancers at a cabaret near Fort Hood are fighting mad about the charges.“We’re not prostitutes,” Bryttni Williford, 19, told the Killeen Daily Herald on Thursday. “We dance and that’s our job, but we’re not in the club selling ourselves for sex.”
Williford and two Babes co-workers — Nicole Henson, 25, and Sheena Taylor, 22 — were released from jail after posting bonds of $4,000 apiece, or $2,000 for each prostitution charge. A fourth dancer, 22-year-old Tia Johnston, bonded out on a charge of “promoting obscene material.” Warrants have been issued for four additional Babes employees, according to Bell County Attorney Richard Miller.
Although conviction on the charges carries a maximum penalty of 180 days in county jail, a $2,000 fine and two years of community service, the women said they feel as though even the maximum is minor compared to the pre-trial punishment phase they’re enduring. Williford, a lifelong resident of nearby Killeen who said she’d never been accused of anything more serious than speeding, complained that she and her family have been stigmatized and traumatized by the publicity.
“We’re all over the news and our family and friends are seeing us being accused of prostitution, and it’s appalling,” she told the Daily Herald.
Taylor, who had quit working at the cabaret a month prior to her arrest, told the paper she’s afraid to take her daughter out in public because of the looks people give her.
“I’m not a prostitute. I [was] there because I am a single mother … I [was] there to take care of my daughter,” she told the Daily Herald.
It’s worth noting that the arrests were made based on affidavits filed by agents of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, a state agency tasked with supervising and regulating all aspects of the alcoholic beverage industry. During her final run for governor, the late Ann Richards promised to abolish the agency if she were re-elected. She was defeated in 1994 by now-president George W. Bush, and TABC avoided the headsman’s axe.
Had Richards defeated the man she famously said was “born with a silver foot in his mouth,” the Babes dancers might have been spared the ordeal that began on November 29th, 2007, when they offered lap dances to two undercover TABC officers. According to their affidavits, the TABC agents were touched by the dancers during G-string-only-clad performances. One agent claimed Taylor placed her head against his groin. That the women received money for their performances made them prostitutes, the agents attested.
According to the Texas penal code, prostitution occurs when one individual “offers to engage, agrees to engage, or engages in sexual conduct for a fee; or solicits another in a public place to engage with him in sexual conduct for hire.” The law also defines “sexual conduct” as “any touching of the anus, breast, or any part of the genitals of another person with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.”
“Basically, what [the affidavits] said was that I had my head in the guy’s groin and rubbed against him. If that counts as prostitution, that’s ridiculous,” Taylor told the Daily Herald, adding that the only part of her body that likely touched the agent was her long hair.
Williford said the only similarities between what dancers do and what prostitutes do is that money changes hands.
“We sell a dance for $20, and prostitutes sell sex for $20,” she told the newspaper, adding she was surprised someone could be arrested for prostitution without having had sex.
At least one Nolanville civic leader said he thinks it’s high time strippers and prostitutes were lumped together.
“You’re asking for trouble when you go into a strip joint.” City Councilman Don Rohloff, the only council member to vote against licensing the club, told the Daily Herald.
TABC began investigating Babes after the Bell County Attorney’s office contacted the agency about possible alcohol, narcotics and penal code violations at the club. According to TABC records, six agents made at least four trips to the club during the one-month investigation.
