Mother denies charges of prostituting two daughters

      The story began in September 1996. An Oklahoma City woman was accused of the unthinkable: prostituting her two young daughters on the streets of Las Vegas, selling their small bodies to dozens of men.
      Then, seven months later and on the eve of trial, a Las Vegas judge dismissed the charges at the request of federal prosecutors, who said new information had come to light. The mother, Connie Behymer, went free.
      Department of Justice attorney Gene Malpas vowed at the time to bring new charges against the woman and a "possible second defendant."
     

Connie Behymer appears Friday in Las Vegas Justice Court on charges she prostituted her two daughters. Photo by Gary Thompson.

Another seven months passed before Behymer faced any new charges. In November, Clark County prosecutors filed their own complaint against the 36-year-old woman, charging her with sexual assault, pandering and child abuse. She was soon arrested in Oklahoma and extradited to Las Vegas, where she now sits in jail.
      The new criminal complaint contains the same allegations as the federal complaint, with one major exception. Prosecutors now claim the acts of prostitution occurred in 1992, when the girls were about 4 and 7, instead of in 1994.
      Malpas said he turned the case over to Oklahoma authorities after the federal charges were dismissed and has had no involvement in it since then.
      "It became clear to us that the crime, if any, was a state crime and not a federal crime," he said during a telephone interview this week from his Washington, D.C., office.
      Assistant Federal Public Defender Arthur Allen said he remained in contact with Behymer, however, "because there was always the chance that the government would refile the charges."
      The Las Vegas lawyer said he has visited Behymer at the Clark County Detention Center since her most recent arrest and maintains an open file on her case.
      "Having represented her, having reviewed and investigated all of the evidence in the case, I am convinced beyond any doubt that the accusations against her are untrue and that the federal government's dismissal of the charges was the proper outcome," Allen said.
      Behymer appeared on Friday before Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo, who appointed an attorney from the Clark County public defender's office to represent her. The judge also scheduled a preliminary hearing for March 10.
      According to Justice Court records, a detective from the Oklahoma City Police Department interviewed the younger girl in September 1996. One court document gives the following description of that interview:
      --The girl told the detective her mother had sold her and her sister on the street in Las Vegas "both day and night."
      --She said men would ask, "How much you want for that girl?", and Behymer would reply, "$50, no refunds."
      --The girl said men would take her to their homes and have sex with her. She estimated this had happened 20 to 30 times.
      --She said the men were mean to her, "because her mom told them to talk mean to her and she'd straighten up."
      According to the same document, another detective from the Oklahoma City Police Department interviewed the older girl in September 1997. During that interview, according to the document, the girl told the detective:
      --she remembered "going off with some guys in Las Vegas."
      --her mother "would have a conversation with some guy, and then the guy would take her and have sex with her."
      --"she did not say anything, because she thought she would get slapped."
      The same document, prepared by a Las Vegas police officer, states that the girls were examined in Oklahoma City in May 1990 "in reference to possible sexual abuse."
      The younger girl "was found to be in normal condition," the officer wrote, but the exam on the older girl indicated sexual abuse. Court records are unclear on what action, if any, authorities took in response to the examinations' findings.
      According to the document, the girls were examined a second time in Oklahoma City in September 1996. Those exams indicated that both girls had suffered sexual abuse since the previous exams, the officer wrote.
      An FBI agent arrested Behymer on Sept. 19, 1996, in Oklahoma City. According to court records, Behymer told authorities the only time she had been in Las Vegas with her children was from June to September in 1992.
      "The record would show that she and the children lived a somewhat itinerant lifestyle that was probably less than ideal, but that certainly is a far cry from what the state is accusing her of," Allen said.
      The lawyer said Behymer's most recent arrest came when she showed up in an Oklahoma court for a custody hearing. Deputy District Attorney Vicki Monroe, who is now assigned to the Behymer prosecution, said the defendant's children are living in foster care in Oklahoma.
      Upon the advice of her new attorney, Deputy Public Defender Joseph Abood, Behymer declined to be interviewed for this story.
      "That's the advice that any defense attorney is going to give their client at this stage in the proceedings," Abood said.
      He said he has had one discussion with Behymer since being assigned to the case.
      "She's adamant that she hasn't done anything wrong," the defense lawyer said.
      He said Behymer also told him "she loves her kids and she misses them."
      Abood said attorneys on both sides of the case need to compile more evidence before the case will be ready for a preliminary hearing.
      Monroe said she has not talked with Malpas about the Behymer prosecution. Las Vegas police submitted the case to the Clark County district attorney's office after receiving information about Behymer from authorities in Oklahoma, she said.
      She said Clark County prosecutors have no plans to bring charges against a second suspect.
      "I don't have any information at this time that would lead me to believe that there was a second defendant involved in Nevada," Monroe said.
      Malpas declined to explain his comment last year about a "possible second defendant."
      "There is a second person who may have been involved, but if their investigation didn't support that, I'm not at liberty to talk about who that was," he said.