DRUGS DRAG BILLINGS DOWN

The trial and conviction of four pimps last week tells us just how ugly the
underbelly of Billings has become.

The men were charged in a conspiracy to take women and girls recruited in
Billings to work in red-light districts in other states. They were convicted
in federal court of all 16 counts in a federal indictment.

They were the latest in a parade of pimps oozing through our judicial
system.

Billings - the "Magic City" - has an evil side that few people ever see, few
who recognize it when they come face-to-face with it, and some who refuse to
acknowledge that it exists.

The mournful cry of the latter is, "Don't tell us negative news" as if
everything will be fine in the Magic City as long as they don't know what's
happening outside their doors in the dark of night.

It exists, however, and ignoring it will not make it go away.

It is a world dominated by drugs, and Billings is gaining a reputation of
being overrun with drugs, druggers and drug pushers.

Out of the drug culture we are spawning thieves, robbers, rapists and, as
last week's trial demonstrates, a thriving population of pimps and
prostitutes.

During last week's trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Shelley Hicks told the
jury, "Unfortunately, and to our shame, Billings is a very good place to
recruit women."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ed Laws said pimps preyed on vulnerable young women
and, because of a plentiful supply of drugs here, Billings "earned" a
reputation as a good place to find girls pliant enough to become
prostitutes.

Defense attorney Brian Kohn argued that the girls "weren't dragged kicking
and screaming into this lifestyle. They made a choice."

One of the girls who "made a choice" testified that she was only 13 years
old when one of the defendants took her to work as a prostitute at truck
stops in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Is a 13-year-old girl really capable of making "a choice" like becoming a
prostitute?

Kohn explained his rationale: "They're hookers. They're drug addicts.
They're thieves."

So why not take one more little girl step and become an interstate hooker
under the management of pimps? It seems like a "logical" transition,
especially if you're a pimp trying to help a poor girl out of a bad
situation.

The four defendants - Michael Sallis, 45; Raymond Andre Johnson, 44; Mark
Allen McMillion, 36; and Anthony Jerome Thompson, 37 - men all old enough to
be the young prostitute's father, are schedule for sentencing before U.S.
District Judge Jack Shanstrom on Nov. 9.

That's three months away. If Billings wants to use that time productively,
it might develop a moral consciousness and a plan to erase our stigma as a
drug capital and haven for pimps and prostitutes.

We might even restore some of the magic we've lost.