The Canal Street Brothel
This story focuses on three generations of women from the same family who all worked in the New Orleans-based Canal Street Brothel -- Tommie Taylor, the grandmother who worked the `phones; her daughter, Jeanette Maier, the madam; and the granddaughter, Monica Montemayor, the working girl. The FBI, suspecting that the brothel, part of a nationwide ring, had organized crime connections, shut it down in 2002 after recording 5,000 calls during an investigation involving 10 FBI agents in the days before, during and after 9/11. No evidence of a criminal connection was found, but more than a dozen women were arrested including the three women who ran the Canal Street Brothel. None of the “johns” who patronized the brothel were exposed or arrested. Monica Montemayor, managed to stay out of jail but is fighting to regain custody of her young daughter.


