♪♪♪ On August 5, 2008, I read a newspaper article that changed the direction of my life.

It was about a 17-year-old troubled teen who ran away and met a 31-year-old man.

In no time at all, he was pimping her out on Craigslist.

When she tried to escape, he brutally beat her and strangled her to death.

And then, thinking he could cover up the murder and get away with it, he knocked out all her teeth and sliced off her tattoos and buried her in the desert.

I can't describe how I felt when I read about Nichole Elizabeth Yegge.

My mother said Amy, that's a horrible story, but I'm worried about you.

You're crying as if she were your child.

And I said no, I'm crying as if she were me.

I was 57 years old.

I knew I had to break my silence.

♪♪♪ (Amy Ayoub) I was born in 1951 in Washington, D.C.

It was the height of the casino boom in Cuba, and my dad and other legendary dealers were sent to Havana to work the tables.

My mom, my sister and I joined him when I was just six weeks old.

"These are all Ellen and I in Cuba."

(Freddie Ayoub) In those days there was a-- gambling was all tolerated.

My family left Cuba in 1953 when I was 2-1/2 years old.

I don't know the whole story, but an article was written saying the games weren't on the up and up, and the next thing we knew, our dad was escorted out at machine-gun point.

♪♪♪ We loved that my mom's dad came to live with us.

We called him Papa, and he was a source of real stability in our lives.

My love of boxing even started because of him.

When I was barely five years old, we would watch the Friday night fights together.

So this is one of the-- I think it might be the only picture we have of the whole family, of dad, mom, Luke, Ellen-- Look at that.

Look-- you might want to look up close with those.

I was eight years old when they got divorced.

(voice of Jeanmary Flaherty) I think that my divorce from her father really was the biggest blow in her life because she-- for some reason, she just loved her father.

He was not a great person at all, very mean.

I was a battered wife.

You know, I was hidden from that because I thought everybody was happy.

Dad was an alcoholic, so there was a lot of violence both by him and her retaliating, and my sister remembers that more.

I don't remember any of it.

I know what happened, but I don't remember it.

(voice of Ellen Ayoub) Dad was a drinker, and he was-- you know, quite often he never made it home with his paycheck.

You know, there was abuse there as far as my mother, with my mother, but Amy had no idea, not a clue.

Well, from a very early age, my mother decided I was her confidant, so I knew what was going on.

She would tell me oh, we need to get out.

We don't want to be here when your dad comes home, and we'd go.

But it was the '50s, and you didn't talk about that stuff.

You never talked about it to friends or anything else, and because my mother said not to talk about it, I didn't talk about it to Amy either.

So Amy loved both my parents, there's no question about that, and she adored my dad where I always had this other view of him because I knew another side of him.

I was daddy's girl, close to him, so it was really hard for me when they got divorced.

It was hard for everybody when they got divorced, as it is for any family, but that was hard.

In fact when she was kicking him out, they were having-- that fight I did see because it went out into the front yard, and she was throwing things at him.

I kept screaming to leave him alone and that I wanted to go with him, and I really did insist on going with him, and I did.

We drove down the street to the Blue Angel Motel, and I stayed with my dad for as long as I could.

(voice of Jeanmary) She was very difficult.

One day she said she wanted to take the trash out, and she didn't come back.

She had already called a taxi to go to her father's house.

I don't remember the first time I ran away.

I mean, I was always begging my dad when I did see him to let me live with him, and he was smarter than I give him credit for sometimes and didn't-- he knew that was going to be worse, so he didn't do that.

I would honestly run to my dad most of the time and stay a day or two, and then he'd make me go back.

(voice of Ellen Ayoub) Amy has just always been that champion of the underdog, and there was my dad, this pitiful guy, but she went to live with him for a while.

And at the same time, my dad was my dad, you know, he was always with cocktail waitresses and he drank.

Everybody was called a cocktail waitress, so there was lots of cocktail waitresses around.

I remember one time in a certain apartment, I had my bedroom, and there was a mirror on the door so that when the door was opened a certain way, I could see in the hallway.

I saw a woman come out with his shirt on and they were in the hallway, and he handed her money and then she got dressed and left.

And I remember him coming in and apologizing because he knew I saw.

You know, he caught a reflection of me in the mirror.

It's very strange to think about my childhood because I just have these little moments, you know, I really don't remember a lot.

They were women that dad wanted to be with, and I wanted to be that kind of woman.

I wanted to be whatever my dad liked, right?

I know that sounds gross, I don't mean it that way, but yeah, I wanted to be what he would pay attention to.

♪♪♪ (voice of Jeanmary) Then I remarried, and she hated her stepfather.

He was an attorney there in Vegas, and I should have never done that, but I did.

I blame myself for all of it because I think I could have handled the divorce if I hadn't remarried, you know?

I mean with Amy.

And she resented him terribly.

I hated him immediately.

It wouldn't have mattered if he was nice or not because I just-- he was trying to replace my dad, so I was not happy.

So everything that we knew and loved changed, and he was totally in control.

We moved to a nice house, had a pool and everything, but that didn't change anything.

(Luke Ayoub) I remember many fights between my stepfather and my mother and the police showing up.

One lady showed up at the house that I guess my stepfather was seeing because I remember mom throwing shellac in her face and dragging her by the hair through the wood chips.

-What did you do?

-Nothing I could do, you know, I just stood there.

But then there was another time where they were fighting in the bedroom, and I had a golf club in my hand.

I went in the bedroom and as mom turned, my stepfather's hand hit her nose and broke her nose.

I was going to take him out with the golf club, you know, I thought, but it never happened.

-I do have good memories of dancing in the house because of the wooden floor in the den.

So I'd always practice my dances and if I did have friends over, we'd dance in there.

And that was your room.

-That was my room, that was your room.

-I have a lot of pictures of you and Karen and I walking there of something, and Ellen and I in front.

-I don't know who it was, but I remember you making out with some guy in there.

-Oh, yeah?

Oh, I know who it was.

-Do you?

-Yeah.

I hated it here, you know, because of what went on there.

♪♪♪ A teacher had found a note I wrote to somebody, and it told them that I had been with some men the night before at a motel.

The school set up a meeting with my mom and stepdad.

I knew that was going to turn out horribly, so my friend and I decided to run away and took the bus to Los Angeles.

There were two guys on the bus who were hitting on us.

At the time I didn't realize it, but they could see how vulnerable and naive we were.

I don't have any doubt that if we'd gone with them, I'd have at least been turned out into the life right then.

I really believe I'd be dead.

Through my stepdad's connections, there were cops waiting at the LA bus depot when we arrived.

I had to spend a few nights in juvenile hall, which was horrifying.

I'll never forget the screams I heard all night long.

I'd never been in a place like that.

When I got home, mom's solution was to send me to the Good Shepherd Home for Girls in Phoenix, Arizona.

(voice of Jeanmary) My husband and I decided that she couldn't be any place where her friends could visit her.

Yes, there was good things that happened there even though there were not good things.

One day a small group-- two people from Toastmasters came to visit, and I don't really remember how many other girls were there or what happened.

I just remember I was in heaven immediately, like that's what I want to do is be comfortable speaking in public, and there's people that do this and help others speak, and I just knew I wanted to be them.

I soaked in everything that they taught in the few hours that they were there, and then I incorporated it.

It really changed the way my time went at Good Shepherd after that.

I would volunteer to give the prayer over the intercom and write this prayer.

You know, take time and make sure that there were three somethings in there, the rule of three.

We have a picture that I think you've seen that shows me up in front of the class, and that's not how I was feeling or behaving before that.

At Good Shepherd, that was the first time I felt that I was getting positive attention.

The only way I'd gotten attention before was negative.

♪♪♪ I started hanging around people who partied a lot and did drugs.

I didn't do them yet, but I loved being around people who were living on the edge.

I don't remember what I did that made my mom finally give up.

I think I ran away again.

At that time the juvenile court system could declare you incorrigible.

You didn't even have to commit a crime to become a ward of the state.

Mom needed help with me, and she did what she had to do.

I know she honestly felt that I would be safer that way, and it wasn't easy for her.

But at the time, I was extremely angry.

I felt totally abandoned.

♪♪♪ The difference was I felt I could manipulate my way home at Good Shepherd and did that, writing and saying all the right things and getting good grades and just doing everything I needed to do because they could get me home.

But once I was in Caliente, then my mom had nothing to say about when I came home, so it felt much more final.

Also, while I was there she ran away from Bud.

She got beaten badly, came up to Caliente with my brother with a broken nose and black eye to say goodbye and that she was going over to England to get away from him, and my sister was over in England at the time.

So then I was definitely feeling alone.

There was not going to be any visits or anything else.

♪♪♪ I turned 16 in Good Shepherd, and then I turned 17 in cottage B, room 11 at Caliente Girls Training Center.

♪♪♪ (door closing) ♪♪♪ (Amy crying) As tough as I was with my family and in their face and I don't care, just belligerent-- I don't even know the word-- just obnoxious, I was really scared.

(audience chatting) So do I look comfortable on this stage?

(audience) Yes.

You know why I'm comfortable on this stage?

-Because you've been here before.

-Because you walked the stage.

-I did walk the stage.

Fifty years ago this year, I graduated from Caliente Girls Training Center which is what CYC was called 50 years ago.

No boys were allowed, and we had a graduating class of two.

But remember your room number.

You leave a piece here.

You leave a piece of you here, but you take things with you, and you get to choose.

The good news is you get to choose what you take with you.

Even as I was crying earlier in B-11, it was sadness.

I remember how scared I was, that I tried to be so tough on the outside, but I was scared.

I was lonely.

And I also remember that I liked some things without admitting it at that time.

I liked the structure.

I liked to not have to make decisions.

I liked the safety.

So when I come back, there's those mixed feelings.

At that time Caliente couldn't keep you if you were over 18 or if you had enough credits to graduate high school.

If I was out, I would have been going into my senior year.

I had enough credits to graduate, so they couldn't keep me.

So the choices were to send me to one of my parents if they would take me, and if not, go into a foster home or St. Jude's Ranch.

So I begged my dad to take me in.

He was working in Portugal at the time, and he agreed.

A parole officer took me to the airport, put me on the plane to Portugal, and then nobody was there to meet me at the airport because he was drunk.

We both drank.

There was no age limit in Europe for drinking.

I really would probably have been an active alcoholic even sooner but because I was put away in school so much, I couldn't act out.

So I was drinking at an alcoholic level from the time I got there at 17.

We were living in a hotel.

That was part of the deal for his job that he got a room at the hotel.

It was a little suite and a bed made out in the living room that I slept on, and I was just on my own all the time.

He slept mostly during the day and worked at night.

And then he came home one night drunk-- well, he came home almost every night drunk, but this time, he was-- he woke me up by touching me, and I pushed him off.

It lasted a couple of minutes, but he was trying to be with me.

I cannot say it.

I pushed him off and he fell asleep.

The next morning he woke up and he didn't say anything, but he gave me $100 and told me to go shopping.

That's what I did, and we never talked about it.

♪♪♪ (voice of Ellen Ayoub) So here she is in November in England and came to see me.

We had a small house, and mom and Luke were already living there.

Amy came, thinking she's only there for a few days, and my dad called me and said, don't send her back.

She can't come here.

I thought oh, gosh, and I had to be the one to tell her.

♪♪♪ Mom was back with Bud, and I thought she was going to pick me up at the airport, but that didn't happen.

I took a cab, and the house was all black, dark.

She didn't want me there.

♪♪♪ His name was Gabe and I liked him, and he seemed to like me.

We went to L.A. and as soon as I got there, he took me to a woman's apartment.

She was stunningly beautiful, and the apartment was gorgeous, lush carpet and just beautiful.

She talked to me about how-- that I could have all that and have a great life if-- and all I had to do is let men do what I was already letting men do.

Then her pimp came.

He dressed me, he showered me, he-- you know, put lotion on me, put powder on me that I still can't stand the smell of.

Got me dressed and then put me out on a corner in Los Angeles.

I was so scared, so I called Gabe and told him I was going to-- I was not standing out there and I was going to call the police or my parents or somebody if he didn't come get me.

♪♪♪ He told me that he dated other people, this wasn't a relationship like that, so I didn't think it was anything if I did the same.

So he came to visit, and I told him I had gone dancing or something, and then he asked me with who, and I told him this guy.

He was hanging up his clothes, and the next thing I know, there was the stereotypical wooden hanger that he beat me horribly with.

I was in such shock.

I just hadn't been hit like-- I hadn't been hit.

I mean, my stepdad spanked us, right, hit us, but not punching and beating like that.

♪♪♪ A cab driver picked me up and told me I could make some money, that there was easy money, and it was at the Fremont Hotel where my dad had been casino manager and my grandfather had worked.

It felt so dirty to be in that hotel that I had loved and that everybody had seen me as this sweet little girl.

It was horrible.

♪♪♪ Then I met a girl, I don't remember where, and we were friends.

She told me that we could make some money just dancing at this bachelor party.

And we started dancing.

I had really long hair so they were wanting us to be together, so I was acting like I was kissing her but my hair was covering it.

And we just kept doing things like that.

I kept faking it.

And then they got-- the guys got mad and said we paid for more than this.

Then I was raped in the bedroom by several of them, and she took me to-- she apologized and acted like she didn't know that was going to happen, but she took me to meet her boyfriend, and she gave him all this money that she'd gotten, so I know she knew.

And that was Walter.

I desperately needed somebody to be nice to me, and that's what he did.

He was very loving, said all the right things, took me shopping and made me feel loved.

He told me what a great life we could have by me working, by me turning tricks, and we would always be together.

I'd already been so sexualized that that was such an easy step, to make money doing it.

(Dr. Halleh Seddighzadeh) Experiencing abuse, witnessing abuse, not necessarily always a primer, but again, in many of the cases we've seen, it makes youth or individuals more susceptible given-- especially with sexual abuse-- given that love and abuse boundary was crossed and, you know, the messaging that is transmitted to the individual.

Let's say a child, in Amy's situation, at a young age that interpersonal violence is normalized, that it is-- if it happens with her in her dynamic, that it's normalized, that it's okay, that it's a part of the relationship, and that's the messaging that's transmitted to youth.

♪♪♪ They knew what I was doing.

They obviously didn't approve, but they felt that if they-- they didn't want to lose me, right?

They didn't want to lose touch with me, so they felt that if they said, you know, we're not going to talk to you if you keep doing that, that I wouldn't talk to them.

It wasn't going to be where I quit doing it because of that.

And they also didn't know.

You know, at one point, I went to Mom when I got beat up.

(Luke Ayoub) I worried about you, but I was okay with it, you know?

I mean, times that I found out you were getting beaten and things like that-- whew, made me angry, and I wanted to go after them.

But I felt if I go after them and get in trouble, then I hurt you and mom and everybody.

-And I'll never forget the first time I tried to get away.

I was 18 years old, and I thought I made it.

I was closing the door behind me, and my pimp came back sooner than expected.

And the two grown men with me, who were supposed to be there to help me get my belongings and keep me safe, ran when they saw him.

I can't describe the terror I felt.

He pushed me back into the apartment.

My hair was long.

He closed it in the door so that I couldn't move without pulling my hair out.

And for I don't know how long, he kicked every inch of my body, and then he held me at knifepoint for two days, beating me and asking me over and over, do you want me to kill you by stabbing you in your heart, or would you prefer I slice your throat?

It was a long time before I decided to try to run again after that.

The threat of possible violence is as scary as the violence itself, sometimes worse.

-Traffickers use a variety of methodologies.

They're actually quite masterful and strategic in their manipulation and coercion, and they isolate victims.

They're manipulating victims.

They're trying to control the perception of the victim.

Traffickers do this continually through threats.

They reinforce this through inducing exhaustion and degrading the survivor, and all these approaches, similar to domestic violence where there's this constant love and abuse, love and abuse, you know, beatings, heavy beatings will ensue but, you know-- especially if it is this romantic dynamic, the individual, the trafficker might state well, after a beating, I'm so sorry.

You know, please go buy yourself this beautiful dress.

I love you.

I'm sorry.

It's this constant tug of war.

♪♪♪ You know, the closest I ever came to dying was not at the hands of a pimp but of a john, more than once, like the time I was sent to the Sahara Hotel for this safe date with a nice guy from Nellis Air Force Base.

As soon as I had my clothes off, he was strangling me.

I heard a voice screaming really far away, and then I realized that was my voice, that it was fading, and I just hoped somebody would find me.

I ran out and ran out naked, and didn't even try to put my clothes on until I got to the elevator.

There was a guy on the elevator.

I might have-- I had something on, half my clothes, and he asked if I needed help.

I said would you just walk me out of here so I don't get arrested, and he did.

♪♪♪ We were both barely 18, both in the life, and we connected immediately.

We made each other laugh so hard, and we made each other feel normal.

That life that was so horrible didn't seem as bad once we found each other.

Anytime I was able to escape my pimp, it was because of Marilyn.

She'd do anything I needed.

I'm absolutely alive today because of her, and I wish she could say the same about me.

Even after all these years, I compare friendships to the one I had with Marilyn, and that really isn't fair because there will never be a connection like I had with her.

♪♪♪ (audience chatting) Sasha is a sergeant with Metro.

-Oh, cool.

-Sergeant?

-Captain.

-I knew I did that wrong.

Captain with Metro and does a lot of outreach into the community, so I think you would have-- (Sasha Larkin) By the grace of God, I have never been a victim of human trafficking, but in my life I have been the victim of other crimes.

I had been the victim of sexual assault as a teenager, and I remember in those moments thinking that I didn't have a choice and it was the first time in my life that I ever had that, right, lack of free will.

I also remember thinking later, that will never happen again and really devoting my life to making sure that I was never a victim like that again, because I felt helpless.

I never felt helpless.

I'm not helpless.

I wanted people to understand that it's easy to sit on the sidelines and go, why didn't you scream, right?

Why just scream?

Just fight back.

Because they don't understand the neurological response that happens sometimes in a victim's body.

The ability to freeze, people think that's just semantics.

Oh, you didn't really freeze.

You could have fought back.

You could have poked his eyes out or, you know, done all these things that seem so simple.

Then there's the "did I have "a short skirt on, was it my fault," right?

I remember somebody asking me, what were you wearing?

What do you mean, what was I wearing?

Does it matter if I was wearing a potato sack or a short skirt?

If it's not something that I wanted to have happen, then it shouldn't have happened, right?

And as a young 14-year-old adolescent carrying that shame and guilt until I was able to process it as an adult and understand okay, there's more to this.

And now as a police official, understanding that we have to teach our cops what happens to victims in sexual assaults, in human trafficking, in all of these cases, that sometimes victims don't have a choice.

It's because sometimes they feel like they don't have a choice in that moment.

Fear can be incapacitating.

Fear, if you're in an alley and somebody robs you of your wallet, it's the same thing of fear if you're in a sexual assault situation.

You feel like the person is going to take your life.

So I think that until you experience fear, you can't describe it accurately enough to somebody.

♪♪♪ My oldest niece was born two years before I met her.

There was just love at first sight, and that's the first time I remember thinking about getting out of that life.

My other niece was born two years after that, and I was there.

My sister never kept me away.

Any chance I got, I was there.

I loved them.

I was with them every moment I could be, but very conscious of what I was hiding.

I just never wanted them to know what I did.

I didn't want them to be embarrassed.

I didn't want them to be ashamed.

And as I look back, it's funny that those were the years that I was acting like that was something that I chose or that I wasn't feeling that victim-ness, and yet I had that shame with them.

The seeds were planted then, and it was one year later after my-- she was born in 1974, and I got out in 1975.

It absolutely was the inspiration for me to get out; it made a difference.

I wanted it for them, and I'm not sure if I would have felt the urge if it wasn't for them.

♪♪♪ I asked my dad if I could stay with him, if I could come see him.

He was living in Monte Carlo at the time, and that would get me so far away from everything, I just-- it's my pattern to run away, right?

If there's any problem, I can run from it.

So that was just another one of those times, and he said yes.

So I went to live with him in Monte Carlo for probably seven or eight months, and it did get me away from all those people, not just miles but mentally and emotionally.

I always say, you know, you can get out that life, but the life doesn't get out of you.

I was still very promiscuous, drinking.

Once again my father was deep into his alcoholism, and he came home drunk and once again tried to sleep with me.

♪♪♪ When I came home, my mother had already told a friend that I was coming home, and she had a job waiting for me at what was then the Holiday Casino that's now Harrah's.

I went to work in the auditing department, working in the count room.

Within a couple of months, I started working for the owner, for Claudine Williams and her husband.

Just getting that job in the count room and the auditing changed everything.

It was just-- I didn't have to tell because I had an "in," and the times were different too.

You didn't have to have background checks and everything as much.

They did ask you if you'd been arrested, but I had an "in" so I didn't have to do that.

So I got to start fresh, and people acknowledged me for what I could do there, and I just loved it.

You know, I just took in every ounce of the positive attention and learned everything I could and still had the other life of sleeping around and drinking and doing drugs, and all that became more and more, especially the drug use became more.

Claudine became like a second mother immediately, but also just a role model.

I wanted to see a woman be that powerful and that confident and still that nice and that funny.

She was a fabulous role model and she cared about me, and she was street smart too so she absolutely knew I was coming to work at 6:00 a.m. in the count room from dancing.

I was partying all night and coming in.

As long as I worked, it was okay.

When it interfered with work, which it did a couple of times, once I started working just for her, she would say something.

She had her boundaries but she would still be there for me, but she knew.

Unfortunately, my drinking and drug use got out of hand, and I decided I just had to get away from the whole scene, and I moved to Phoenix.

Claudine had a feeling I'd be back, and she held my job for me.

By that time my friend Marilyn had started stealing for a living.

One time when she visited me in Phoenix, she used my car and went shopping, stealing really.

She was arrested and used my name since it was on the registration, and then she skipped out on the mandatory classes for offenders that she was supposed to take.

When I came back to Vegas and my old job, I went to renew my work card, and there was a warrant under my name.

I flipped out, and on top of that I knew I had to tell Claudine, and I felt that I also had to tell her about my sealed record charges, just in case they weren't really sealed, which was something I always worried about.

All she said was you don't ever have to mention that again, and for all the years we were together, we never mentioned that time in my life again.

♪♪♪ I woke up, and I'd had a nightmare that I was at the Thoroughbred Lounge and there was a group of men, and they were stabbing somebody on the ground and when I could get through to it, I saw that it was Marilyn who was stabbed.

That next day, I got a call that Marilyn had been in a car accident.

She got high and drove her car into a parked car.

She was alone and she laid there against the steering wheel for hours by herself, and she died at that same time that I had the dream.

I've never-- I'm not one of those people that have these dreams or these omens but I did, and it was-- we had not talked for the last year.

We were so close, and we didn't talk over that arrest, over her not telling me, to prepare me that there was a warrant under my name, and she was just at that point in her life where she didn't understand me being upset.

I was getting clean and sober, and I had to be-- I got rid of all my friends or what I thought was my friends at that time and she was one of them, and it was so hard to do that anyway, but when she died, it was-- I'm honestly still not over the guilt of that.

♪♪♪ (Richard Bryan) Yes, I first met Amy in the 1970s.

I was officed with John O'Reilly and she was there as a receptionist, as I recall, and I was gearing up to run for attorney general.

I was a state senator at the time, and Amy offered to help.

Initially, as I recall, she helped type-- that gives some indication of how long ago this was-- to type the thank you notes and things like that.

During the course of the campaign, she became even more active and looking back on it, she loved it.

She loved the campaign, and that would be a big part of her future.

-When I started to volunteer for him it was still on my record, and I just felt an obligation to tell him so that it wouldn't-- so if that came up, it wouldn't hurt him as a candidate.

He said I'm judging you by the person that I know, and I still want you to volunteer.

He didn't ever hold that against me or mention it or anything to me.

-This was back in '78, I think, is when she first told me, and it was clear to me at that time that she was trying to change her life, and she did.

And I think that's the remarkable story, but it had to be very painful.

♪♪♪ I met Adam Laxalt's mother, Michelle, and although we did not agree on one thing politically-- (laughter) --we loved each other immediately.

She told me her secrets, I told her mine, and we both kept them.

She knew she could help me with my secret.

I was just a couple years out of that life, and she called somebody a lot of you know, Rex Bell, an attorney-- I think he was with the DA's office at the time-- and told him to please meet with me, which he did at her request and decided to do me a favor, and immediately he sealed my record.

I'd been arrested when I was 18 years old twice.

That was going to stay with me all my life, and because of Adam's mother, I got the life I have totally because of that act of kindness.

When you don't have to say that you've been arrested, when you can build a new life for yourself, it's a gift.

(Barbara Buckley) The number-one request for services is to vacate or seal the prostitution offenses, and we have helped numerous survivors and it's just been an incredible experience because we'll catalog the journey.

So many times it might start in foster care or with an abusive step-parent and then lead to being trafficked and being sold to other traffickers, and the journeys are horrific but in the end, we usually see the survivors when they've broken free.

When we're able to clear them up, and we've been able to clear every single one of them, they just express such joy and gratitude saying, you know, the chains have finally been shattered and this has changed my life.

♪♪♪ (Catherine Cortez Masto) Amy actually worked with me on my campaigns, right?

So when I ran for attorney general, I asked her to help out, help to raise money and support the campaign, and she did.

She's wonderful.

And then just through the years have known her, known Claudine Williams, right?

So Claudine was a great friend.

Amy's worked with Claudine, so over the course of the years, just developed a friendship.

-I loved my fundraising years.

I got to raise money for our commissioners, attorneys general, governors, Congressmen, United States Senators, and I even worked on events with some of our presidents.

It was a double-edged sword though, because as proud as I was, and even though my record had been sealed for years, I was always afraid somebody would find out.

(Dario Herrera) When I first met Amy, she was a financial advisor.

She was working with her clients to help them build and manage their wealth.

She was also volunteering in politics, helping candidates like myself raise money to win our elections.

Eventually she became a full-time fundraiser, adding nonprofits that spoke to her being to her roster of clients.

Today, she is the founder of The Zen Speaker, an incredible public speaker in her own right, a great public speaking coach and a mentor.

-So raise your hand if you hate icebreakers.

Good, because we're going to do one.

You, too.

(laughter) All right.

We're going to take three minutes and you're going to write out-- you're going to make an acronym of your first name.

So Caroline, I'm sorry, with a long name, I'm sorry.

We'll give you some examples.

This is how it's going to go.

My name is Amy.

"A" is for authentic.

That's my goal, to be more authentic every day.

"M" is for Monte Carlo.

I got to live there when I was in my 20s, and it was my first step out of a very dark life.

"Y" is for yes and yippy skippy, because those are my words of joy.

"S" is for scared... (laughter) No.

Okay.

"O" is for... (Orlando Maffucci) I was pretty amazed because I don't think I ever have, to this day, met a woman that knows so much about the game of boxing, knows so many people in the game of boxing.

This was back then.

This was, you know, before she was on the commission, and everyone thought it was a big deal that she was on the commission.

To me it seemed natural for her to be on the commission, knowing the history, and where she had been, you know, the Silver Slipper fights, knowing all these names of boxers and trainers and managers that weren't like way up here.

They were like right here in the middle and maybe some way down here and, you know, anyone that knows the names and knows those fights and-- you know, automatic respect.

♪♪♪ There was a lot of scary things about it, but to say no to an athletic commission that's really the Boxing Commission here, as a lifelong boxing fan was-- I just couldn't do it.

I was so scared that my story was going to come out because it was big news because I was the first woman.

It was bigger news than if I was another guy, and I was just so afraid it was going to come out because a lot of people in the boxing world knew me.

I was working those years that I was at those fights at the Silver Slipper, and a lot of the managers, the referees, different people knew that part of my life, and just not one person said anything.

♪♪♪ (Richard Steele) You know, it was a lot of pressure.

It was a lot of pressure on all of them, you know, but especially her because she was the only woman.

They were saying wow, is she going to make the right decision or not?

And if not, it would have been very easy to say well, she was a woman.

She didn't know no better.

But she was a woman that did know the game and made the right decision, and she did it the right way.

They made the right decision for not only the sport of boxing, not only for Mike Tyson, but for the state of Nevada.

-Listen, those kind of fights make a lot of money here.

They wanted him to fight.

They didn't see a problem.

Next thing I know, there's a press conference with he and Lennox Lewis-- that was the fight that was coming up-- and he bit Lennox Lewis, and the media pretty much made it where the commission had to have a hearing.

They couldn't let something like that happen and then just let them fight here.

After that hearing got national, and international actually, great press, I knew from politics that it was only going to go downhill after that.

During that time though, I was absolutely petrified that the story would come out, that that was international news, and so I thought everything I did and all the work I put into that and what I accomplished was going to be nothing.

That would be the story.

So that was my life, right?

No matter what I did, I always had that fear, that it wasn't going to matter because that secret would come out.

So even though it didn't, it haunted me almost like it did.

♪♪♪ For all those years, I would kind of make light of that time in my life.

I acted like it was something that was my choice-- or maybe not saying those words, but that was certainly the feeling I gave people.

It wasn't until 2007 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer that it all changed, and it changed dramatically and immediately.

It was almost like I wasn't paying attention to the fact I had breast cancer.

I got the message of this has to come out, and I got full of self-hate.

They told me that they got it early and they felt like it would be a lumpectomy, not a mastectomy, but they didn't know until they went in, and I lost it.

I just felt like-- I remember just free writing, journaling, letting it all come out that way and feeling like when they open me up, I'm going to be full of cancer because I'm this horrible, horrible, black-- it's all black inside from my lies, and I just felt just the word whore, whore, whore.

I started working with a therapist again to be able to get that out when a spiritual guide for me told me to write the stories that I haven't told, so I journaled about the trick, the customer, that tried to strangle me at the Sahara.

I wrote about my trafficker beating me at different times, and I had never talked about that or journaled it or anything, so at least I started getting that out.

Then it was a year after that that I read about Nichole Yegge.

So it still took me a long time of how it needed to come out, how it should come out and when it would come out, but that was where I knew there was no turning back.

It's what led up to knowing that when I felt I was ready and it was the right time for the testimony, that was the only time in my life I was willing to lose my family if I had to.

-Something Amy has shared and that we've noticed in some of our cases is the shame, and you can liken it sometimes to survivor's guilt, but again the shame and minimization of their own traumatic experiences for having survived and others not, or that their trauma is not as severe as another.

It's just a result of all of the stress and violence and trauma they've experienced.

Amy shares the story of Nichole and sees herself in Nichole and expresses this guilt of surviving because that young girl could have been Amy.

♪♪♪ (wind blowing) ♪♪♪ We never know what somebody else has been through.

We can't look at somebody and say they're this or that or this or that.

The labels-- and even if someone labels you, don't take that in; don't accept that.

You get to label you.

You get to say what's after those words "I am."

I am strong, I am brave, I am smart, I am good, I am valuable, no matter what they say you are.

When I spoke at Caliente in 2012 at their anniversary, that's the first time I've publicly mentioned anything about that part of my life, and it was a celebration.

I wasn't the keynote speaker, I was just one of the speakers so it was a bit of what I talked about, but it's the first time that I revealed that that had been part of my life.

That is when it was for me, even though I was hoping at one point that it would help the kids.

By the time I got there it was "I gotta say it," and that was extremely healing because I wasn't allowed to talk to the kids right afterwards but I heard that they connected, and it helped them and they were inspired by it.

(Traci Jasper) The first time I ever met Amy I was in Caliente Youth Center.

I was 16 or 17 years old, and it was during the 50th anniversary, the jubilee there, and she was there to tell her story, which I later found out was her first time ever sharing her story.

I was about three rows back, and she was just-- she was so compelling when she spoke, and she told her story so confidently.

It felt like it was just me and her in the room, and I just wanted to stand up and clap and shout right there in the middle of the room.

I just felt so touched and moved by what she spoke about, and not just what she spoke about but the way she spoke about it.

I knew I just had to-- I knew I had to get closer to her.

I knew I had to meet her, and we couldn't really have a conversation because she had to continue moving on, but I knew that we'd meet again.

I just knew we'd meet again, and we did.

We met again after I left CYC.

We ended up meeting again.

♪♪♪ During my eight years as attorney general, I started wanting to look at how we address what I saw, and at the time it was a lot of our kids that were being arrested for prostitution.

I saw that when I was assistant county manager prior to being AG, and I couldn't figure out what was going on because these kids were coming through our juvenile justice system here in Southern Nevada, and they were being arrested for prostitution.

These were our kids.

-Catherine Cortez Masto was our AG, and she was talking about this bill that she wanted to bring to the next legislature to introduce the term "sex trafficking" into the law-- that wasn't even a phrase yet that they used-- and also increase the penalties for traffickers.

-I had been working on a comprehensive bill to address sex trafficking in this state.

I had been going around the state talking about it, talking to anybody who was going to listen from the faith-based community to the advocates to law enforcement and prosecutors, you name it, and Amy found out about it.

There was the call that she said I want to-- I need to talk to you, and I said okay.

She said, can we go have breakfast?

-I told her my story, and she was fabulous of course and said that it was my story, she would not tell it, but that she would keep me informed of what the office was doing on the subject and if I wanted to participate I could, and if I didn't, it would be fine.

Her office called and said they were going to-- the bill was going to come before the legislature a lot sooner than they thought.

They thought it was going to be towards the end, but they wanted to hear it within two-- it was going to be within the next two weeks and would I testify with Catherine.

I said I'm going to say yes before just to commit, and so I said yes, and then I was petrified.

(scooter whirring) "You want to ride the Jeep outside?"

(Sheila Alarid) He goes over there pretty much every morning to start off the day, and they'll watch some Caillou.

Sometimes he'll request that she make him toast with peanut butter, and recently he's been requesting hot dogs.

She told me the story, and she framed it less as this was my story, what happened to me, and more of I'm going to be testifying about this and sharing my experiences at the state legislature.

When I heard about it, I was like that's great, right?

I didn't have a grasp of what a big deal it was at that point in time.

(Michael Alarid) One of the things she was worried about was her mother's reaction, but she also wanted to make sure that if her mother wanted to see it that she had access to the testimony, so she asked me to go over and stream the testimony or at least offer to do so.

And it was interesting.

To that point my association with Jeanmary was that she was just sort of this really quiet, placid, very much model sweet old lady.

When I went over she immediately said oh, I'm not interested in that, and I was like oh, okay.

I said well, you know, Amy just wanted me to come and ask if you'd like it, and then she just started shaking her head and she asked me what I thought of Amy doing it.

I said well, what do you think?

She said this is just-- I don't think it's a good idea.

Her father would not be happy about this.

He would not be happy about this at all.

This is not what we do.

We don't talk about things like this, and I don't know why she has to bring it up, and I don't know why she feels like she has to go into this large public setting and talk about it.

I think it's just embarrassing, and I'm really embarrassed.

(voice of Jeanmary) I'm from a generation where you didn't tell everything, you know, and she sent her neighbor Michael to deal with me when he couldn't possibly know what my feelings were.

You know, he wouldn't be expected to, but he was very upset at the way I reacted.

I don't know what I said.

He came and said that she's testifying and this and that, and I didn't relate to him at all.

I can't explain it.

It's just there's something that-- I don't know, growing up you just didn't talk about things, much less go in front of the assembly.

Maybe if I had been there at the assembly, it would have been fine.

Hearing about it was very difficult.

(Esther Rodriguez Brown) It was such a brave act but also a selfless act as well because you have here a woman that has a successful career, that is so well-respected in the community, that she deals with all these politicians, and for her was risking everything, was risking her career, was risking her reputation, her credibility maybe from some people, because again when you are not involved in this issue, people have this black and white view of what sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and prostitution is.

You know, it's very wishy-washy, so I think that not a lot of people would have done that in her point that her life was.

I mean, she didn't even have the need to do it but she did have the need to do it, and she did it and I think that's something that not a lot of people would have the bravery and the-- it was a selfless act.

You know, I'm going to do this probably because she needed to but also because she knew how many lives she could change because of who she was.

(gavel rapping) "Good morning, the Joint Assembly "and Senate Committee on Judiciary, "we're coming to order.

"Madame Secretary, please call the roll."

So when we kicked it off, it was me and Amy at the table, and I introduced the legislation and I went through it and talked about it, then the next testimony would be Amy talking about it, but it was Amy talking about it from a personal perspective and why the legislation was so important, and if you see her speech-- I wouldn't even say her speech, it was just Amy talking about her childhood and upbringing and what happened.

It was so compelling, and I will tell you as I watched the legislators, not a dry eye.

And what was even more impactful, you got to remember, a lot of those legislators knew Amy and did not know this background, right, did not know her history.

So it was just this moment where you literally could hear a pin drop, and everybody just focused in on what she was saying and what was happening, and why this story that was compelling coming from her.

It was an incredible moment, incredible.

-There's things I wish I didn't do in my life.

I have not spoken about this for 38 years so the shame is obviously unspeakable, but the one regret that I really have is never getting to look that pimp in the eye and say I'm not afraid of you anymore.

And to help any girl be able to look the pimp in the eye and say that, to testify, to make sure that they have to take the punishment that's due them no matter what the outcome is, actually, it's just to let them have that say, to support them in saying that, is the biggest gift you can give and will make the biggest change.

I've worked very hard the last four decades to be a positive contributor to my community, to be a good person, to make amends to my family and anybody else I hurt, to make myself and my family proud of me, to restore my sanity and to earn the respect of people like you, and the purpose of that was this day, was for me to be able to sit here.

So I respectfully request, I really beg you, that when you are voting on this that you just remember me and Andrea's daughter and especially Nichole Elizabeth Yegge.

Thank you.

(applause) (Assemblyman Frierson) I for one will say it's not-- it's not you who needs to earn our respect, it's us as servants that need to earn the respect of citizens like you.

(applause) Then when I testified at Carson City, that was every single thing I feared, testifying in front of the people that I feared would judge me the most which were elected officials that I had worked for as candidates.

That was probably my scariest time of worrying about getting found out, and then to be accepted and just embraced with all the love I was after that, that was beyond healing.

There's still healing from my life and healing that is coming up now, but it was a level that I can't even explain.

♪♪♪ (audience chatting) It's always interesting seeing an issue evolve, right?

I mean, there was a time when nobody wore seat belts, right, and kids just played in the car and then all of a sudden the data started coming out, and people began realizing that people's lives were in danger.

Now you hardly ever see a child who is not in a seat belt, and you can compare it to trafficking.

There was a time when it was not seen as any big deal.

This is a woman engaged in prostitution, there's no harm in it, and now I think you begin to see the attitude shifting.

People are beginning to recognize the violence, the control, the tragedy, starting with I think Senator Catherine Cortez Masto's bill.

Amy's brave coming forward I think started the tide turning really here in Nevada, and now you see posters in the restrooms at the airport.

You see a recognition that this is really a crime of violence and control.

♪♪♪ (laughter) (Jessica Kay Halling) I met Amy about two years ago at a New Leadership dinner.

It was the end of the night, Amy is trying to leave, and I'm introduced to her and I walked with her to her car.

I found myself rambling because I'm like oh, I want to know her, so I'm spewing all my story on her as she's probably like I just want to get in my car.

But for whatever reason since that night, she's been stuck with me and has kind of just taken me under her wing.

She likes to say that she's my self-appointed mentor.

I struggle with viewing myself as a victim because I played a role.

I come from a really small town.

I had no idea prostitution, trafficking, any of that even existed.

I dated my pimp for months before he kicked me out of the car onto the track.

I was vulnerable.

I was homeless at the time.

I had a four-year-old son, right, but I played a role so it's hard for me to view myself as a victim also.

I really understand the manipulation on the back side, so although it's still difficult for me to view myself as a victim, I do understand how that happens and how it happened and how I got caught up in it for so long and how I couldn't leave, right?

So I personally believe even if a woman "chooses," she really doesn't have a choice and she can't just walk away, right?

I think that in Las Vegas, we have to change the perception.

We have to make people realize that prostitution is trafficking, and that's where we lack in this community.

We think prostitution is legal.

We think those girls want to be there, so we have to break that down and make people realize it goes hand-in-hand.

It is the same thing.

-Victims are often misunderstood as staying or willing or wanting the situation, and the trauma bond is minimized of course because it is a neurobiological coping mechanism.

It is the brain trying to survive.

It is not a sign of weakness.

It has nothing to do with choice.

Choice is surpassed in this regard.

(Annika Huff) I got out of my trafficking situation because my trafficker had beaten me with a metal pole that had given me a gangrene infection.

He let me walk around with it for two weeks, and by the time the two weeks had ended, my butt was actually falling out on the floor.

When he saw that happening, he knew I was close to dying so he sold me to another trafficker.

The other trafficker didn't know my physical condition when he purchased me, and I was there for four days at his house, and my body was getting worse and worse as time went on.

He called my trafficker up and he said I didn't pay for a dead body.

You need to come pick her up, otherwise I'm taking my car back.

He sold me for a Chrysler 300.

He wanted that car so badly.

He came and picked me up, and when we got into the car alone, he asked me why I should take you to the hospital instead of the desert.

♪♪♪ Well, they told me that a bill was passed on July 1 and that it was going to help my case.

My trafficker got life without the possibility of parole.

He received that on one of his charges.

It was first-degree kidnapping.

It wasn't until-- I want to say October of this last year, 2017, when I found out Amy was the person who spoke on that bill.

I mean, the amazing things Amy has done for me to be successful but also just the amazing happiness that she brings to my life, she understands me.

She gets me.

She cares with absolutely no agenda of who I am, and she wants to see me be happy and healthy and successful.

And I want to bring the legacy forward for victims of human trafficking that Amy had really instilled in my heart because I mean, she's the reason I've done what I can.

♪♪♪ Different people say that must have been so freeing when you testified and when you got that story out, and absolutely it was, but it was freeing for a specific reason: That's when I felt nobody has anything on me.

They can say what I did, they can call me names, they could do anything.

All those things I feared for decades that somebody would do, now I didn't have to fear that at all.

Nobody had something on me.

That's why I love Renee Brown's quote, "When shame is spoken, it loses its power."

So I want to be that safe place where they can speak their shame, let the power be lost, and then they regain their power.

It's in them.

The shame loses it, they regain it, and everything changes.

You can physically see changes.

-The way me and Amy met when I saw her at CYC was just so impactful in my life.

If it wasn't for me meeting her that day, I would have still had a lot of questions about a purpose in life.

But because I met her that day, the biggest light bulb went off, and something profound just spoke to me, and I just looked at that stage with Amy on it, and I said, that's what I want to do.

That's how I want to be.

-I think the times that I've been helped most in my life by a friend or a therapist or anyone is when they heard what I didn't say and started a conversation about that, a nonjudgmental conversation about that.

That's what I bring to my coaching and to my classes.

Most of the time, if you would ask me what somebody's speech was about, I couldn't tell you very much, and I'm totally present when I'm listening and coaching.

I'm totally present, but I'm not listening for that.

I'm listening for what aren't they saying?

There's another story, there's a deeper level, there's something that needs to be said, and that's the difference between my coaching and someone else's because public speaking, there's pretty basic techniques to use to give a good speech.

It's giving that extra bit.

For instance, there's been a client of mine that only speaks about business, and yet in the classes, she was able to share personal stories that she was shameful about.

And with me encouraging her to get the shame out of the way, it changed how she presented herself totally.

So just because you're giving a business speech or something that you feel isn't a personal revelation, you're not testifying about your personal story, sharing a little bit of you personally is what connects you to the audience, what makes you that person that they talk about afterwards, that they want to hear again.

I think that if we have anything that we're hiding so deeply, if we don't get that out, then we're afraid to talk about our personal life at all.

We're afraid if we tell a little bit about ourselves, that big secret might come popping out, so we hold everything in.

If we can get that out in a safe environment-- it doesn't mean you're ever going to speak about that subject in public again other than a safe group, but you're going to be able to talk more about yourself and let some of you show up.

When that happens, that's when the magic of a speech happens.

It can be so subtle, just showing a little bit of your personality, telling a little bit of your story that isn't something shameful, sad or depressing, just you.

That changes that lecture into a conversation, and that's when you change people.

That's when you transform somebody.

That's when you hear how you changed people from what you shared.

I've been dying my hair since I was a teenager, and dyeing it-- you know, it was blue, it was purple, it was whatever.

And certainly as I got older and it started getting gray, I dyed it.

I wanted to hide that gray.

Then a few years ago, I was sick and I had problems with my hip and I was just in a lot of pain, and I didn't have the strength to sit in the chair and get my hair dyed, so I said I'm just going to let it go.

But it was hard, right?

Because all my friends would say don't do that, you're going to look older, you might even lose business.

People have panic feeling about gray hair.

But I let it go.

I thought I could change it if I don't like it, and almost immediately I liked it, and I also let it go naturally curly, which I used to blow it out straight all the time.

So I let it go curly, I let it go gray, and people started complimenting me on how I looked, how I looked.

And I realized that there was like a special gift to my gray hair for me because I really liked it.

I looked in the mirror one day and thought, I never once thought that I would live long enough to have gray hair.

Never.

And I thought of my best friend from when I was out on the streets who died-- ran the car into a parked car and died by herself because she was high-- didn't get to have gray hair.

And Nichole that I told you about doesn't get to have gray hair.

So it's like a gift to me.

It's a reminder, and it's every time I look at it or anytime somebody says oh, I love your hair, I think of them.

And more than anything, I want all of you to have gray hair.

It might not be on your list of things to do right now, but remember it when it happens.

Public speaking is one thing that's helped me gain more confidence and be able to share my story in a way that helps me and helps others.

So for today, just for today, if you think I'm full of it, if you can't believe you had to sit here and listen to me for this time, whatever you might be feeling that's negative, just for today, think of yourself, that you're in this place for a reason.

You have a purpose, and nobody's purpose is to hurt others or to be hurt.

I promise you that's nobody's purpose.

You have a purpose, and this is just part of your movie, right?

This is one scene of the movie, and you get to decide how the movie ends.

And I want to come see your movie.

So if you will play with me here for a minute, I want to really impress upon you the importance of what you say after the words, "I am," of how important that is.

Have any of you heard of Muhammad Ali?

(audience) Yes.

-He always said, "I am the greatest," and he said that he-- he tells the story that he said that before he was the greatest and that it was the repetition of that affirmation, that positive phrase, that allowed him to become the greatest.

So just for a minute, think of a positive word that you think you are: You're brave, you're smart, you're courageous, you're valuable, you're worthy, you're a risk taker, you're a good sister, whatever.

Something, I am something, and we're all going to yell it out together.

It's all going to be different words, okay?

So on five-- this is our last thing together, don't let me down.

1-2-3-4-5 "I am grateful."

Yay!

(laughter) ♪♪♪ ♪ Listen, listen.

♪ ♪ A woman feels her power ♪ ♪ when her voice is being heard.

♪ ♪ A woman feels her power ♪ ♪ when her voice is being heard, ♪ ♪ so listen.

♪ ♪ The Earth will be healed ♪ ♪ by the women of the world.

♪ ♪ The Earth will be healed ♪ ♪ by the women of the world.

♪ ♪ Listen.

♪