SouthPark Madam Hush Hush Who is Sallie Saxon?

Source: http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/stories/wcnc-111208-mw-saxon_interview1.1a7bc79a3.html

By GLENN COUNTS / NewsChannel 36
E-mail Glenn: GCounts@WCNC.com

Sally Saxon Interview on video

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Who is Sallie Saxon? The simple answer is that she is a criminal. But nothing was simple in the life of this very complicated woman.

“Your whole life is a lie. Everything is a lie,” Saxon said in an exclusive interview with NewsChannel 36.

On Aug. 27, the life that this south Charlotte mom knew changed forever.

“I made a lot of money, but I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not worth the money to have lived like that,” Saxon said.

Saxon was sent to federal prison for two years for running “Hush Hush,” the largest Internet-based prostitution ring in America.

“If I provided the list then it’s got the names of high profile people throughout the United States,” Saxon said.

Saxon’s business was high-end — wealthy men, expensive dinners, flowers and gifts. But her start more than 20 years ago was nothing like that. There was precious little glamour and a lot of danger when she worked as a call girl.

Her first husband was sent to Vietnam. When he returned from the war, Saxon said he had psychological issues and physically abused her and her son.

She was desperate when a prominent Charlotte businessman and his group of friends made her an indecent proposal.

“The food was getting low. It really was and they knew that I was in that situation,” Saxon said.

With just $25 to her name and two kids to support, she felt she had no choice but to sell her body.

“I felt terrible about myself when I did that. I did. I was nervous. I was afraid. I was upset,” Saxon said.

After she left that abusive marriage, Saxon says she got out of the business for a while and got a job in sales.

“I was not making enough money,” she said. “By then your children are getting older, then they need more.”

Sallie says she made the decision to return to the life of a call girl, but instead of working independently she found employment with a couple of escort services.

“That was terrible, absolutely terrible,” she said.

Saxon says the services only cared about one thing — money.

Extended Audio:
•  How Saxon started ‘Hush Hush’
•  Saxon on living a double life
•  The client list: Powerful, rich men
•  Saxon’s relationship advice and why men cheat

Blog:
•  My jailhouse interview with Sallie Saxon

Related Stories:
•  Part 1: Who is Sallie Saxon?
•  Part 2: Saxon’s powerful client

“If you did not give the client what he wanted, everything he wanted, then you had to pay a fine. So I ended up owing the agency more than I made because I had fines everywhere,” she said.

There was one night at a Charlotte motel that changed Saxon’s life. She ended up having to fight for her life.

“The gentleman opened the door and I walked in and I looked to my right, and I could see silhouettes behind the shower curtain, and I got out without my shoes, my blouse was torn, my pocketbook, I don’t know where it went,” Saxon said.

At that point, some women might have gotten out of the business for good, but not Saxon. It was at that moment that she decided to become a madam.

The money, the flowers, expensive dinners, fancy clothes and cars — Sallie Saxon enjoyed all the trapping of a successful, albeit illegal, business.

“I liked the way I was treated because people thought I had money,” Saxon said. “I liked the power it represented and the respect that it gave.”

Last November that life came to an end when FBI agents raided Saxon’s house on Coatbridge Lane and took her away in handcuffs. She pleaded guilty to money laundering charges and was sent to the federal medical center in Lexington, Ky., a minimum security prison for women.

“I started off very small,” Saxon said. “I worked with one lady or two ladies.”

That was more than 15 years ago. Saxon was one of the first madam’s to see the potential of the Internet.

“I was able to hide behind the Internet,” she said. “I was able to screen the clients. I was able to research the business and find out what mistakes other people made.”

By screening the clients Saxon was able to better protect her girls and generate lots of money. Her business took off.

“I decided that I wanted to be the best at whatever I did. I wanted to be very selective about the ladies I worked with,” Saxon said. “I also wanted clients that I considered gentlemen. Because of what I had been through in my life I was able to discern of who was and who was not a gentleman.”

These gentlemen had two things in common — money and power. Saxon says a lot of them would be nationally recognized.

“Washington politicians?” we asked.

“I’m just going to say that you would know them. You would know them. I’m not going to say yes or no, but the people I have affiliated with are people in high positions that make laws. They’re people that you watch on TV.”

Saxon’s clients were looking for more than just beauty. For every girl who applied, she says she only hired one out of 10.

“I wanted someone with a college degree. Someone who could carry on a conversation,” Saxon said. “I expected them to workout, to be in physically good shape, mentally, emotionally.”

When a gentleman would call or e-mail, Saxon’s first priority was to learn all that she could about him using Internet skills that could rival any computer hacker.

“I could find out anything I wanted,” she said. “I found out the names of their children, the mother, their neighbors, their work, how long they worked there, how much they paid for their house.”

If you made the cut as a client — and she says half the men did not — it would cost you $2,500 for a three-hour date, including dinner at an expensive restaurant. Saxon would always spring for a complimentary dessert. If a client wanted some out-of-town company, say to St. Thomas, Saxon would make sure they had an enjoyable time.

“I was the booking agency. I was a psychiatrist. I was a friend. I was a mother, and I was a babysitter,” Saxon said.

In case you’re wondering, it was the men who needed most of the babysitting. Saxon says their egos were limitless.

“Themselves are the main thing they are concerned about. They lose compassion for other people. They couldn’t understand why their wives didn’t want anything to do with them,” she said.

These men were so rich and powerful that even after the bust, they kept calling.

“I’d say, ‘Do you realize my phones are tapped?’ And these are the kinds of people, it just goes over their head. These are the kind of men if you say no to, they say, ‘Wow, that’s a challenge.’”

These were also the kind of men who enjoyed living on the edge, who flirted with being caught, and sometimes they were. Saxon blamed the men when their wives found out.

“When I would tell the client, ‘And by the way, your wife is on the phone, and she has something to say to you,’ I never heard from them again,” Saxon said.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Who is Sallie Saxon? It’s a complicated question. Her story began March 30, 1950. She was raised by her grandparents in their Myers Park home.

“Took dancing lessons, went to etiquette school and I felt like I had a very good family. I come from a good family,” Saxon said.

Saxon was one of the first students to walk through the doors of Quail Hollow Elementary School. She graduated from South Mecklenburg High and attended Queens College for a year.

Growing up, she says, she didn’t date much.

“I can’t say that I was a person that was going out and going to a lot of parties because wherever I went I was chaperoned, either by my father or my granddaddy and the granddaddy was the worst,” Saxon said.

Saxon says a bad marriage and a desperate financial situation transformed her from an innocent little girl into the biggest Internet madam in the country.

NewsChannel 36 talked to her at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Ky. It is a minimum security prison. There are only about 287 inmates here.

“I’m fine with this, and the food is good and the staff is respectful,” Saxon said. “I’ve felt all along that they really want to help me.”

It is a higher power that is helping Saxon adjust to her new life as a convicted felon.

“I was walking through the valley, and none of us come to the Lord Jesus Christ on top of the mountaintop when we’re doing great. That’s when we think we don’t need him,” Saxon said. “But I was in the valley and my life needed to change and my life changed.”

Saxon says her spiritual transformation began four months before FBI agents knocked on her door.

“I just could not get over the fact that I had asked God to get me out of the business and I felt that he had, and I didn’t care how I got out, I just knew I was done,” she said.

Saxon made a lot of money — $3 million according to the FBI’s count — but she says she was never free to enjoy it and she lied to everyone.

At a family gathering her father asked her, “So what do you really do?” And she says she handed him a bunch of fake invoices and claimed she was paid for Internet design.

“I think when he told me that he believed me that hurt me more than anything, because he believed a lie I had just told him,” Saxon said.

Because of her spiritual journey, Saxon says she can clearly see all the hurt that she has caused.

“Do I think it should be made legal? Personally, where I stand now with my faith and what I’ve been through, violating holy matrimony is wrong. It’s totally wrong,” Saxon said.

Because of her cooperation, the government was able to prosecute three Johns. Saxon would like to see more.

“I still feel that the client needs to be held accountable. I really do. It’s time. Otherwise it makes a whole mockery of the whole thing,” she said.

To this point, no girls have been prosecuted. Saxon went to bat for them.

“I have a softer spot in that area. One side of me wants to say no, because I know why many of them got into it,” she said.

Saxon acknowledges that she exploited them, but she hopes they benefited.

“I’m proud that I was able to make them the money that they could put themselves through school and educate their children, buy a home, get out of debt. I’m proud that I provided a safe situation for them,” she said.

What about the list? The 2,200 clients that were at Saxon’s fingertips — the rich, the powerful and the famous, will we ever know who they are?

“My husband and I prayed for a long time about what to do with the list, and I’m not out here to expose those people,” Saxon said. “That’s something they will have to live with. I’m here to serve my time and to pay mankind back for what I’ve done.”

In two years, Saxon will walk out of the doors of FMC Lexington. She says that she prepares for that day every day while she is in prison and she has faith that she will make it.