by Bob Hamer
He had plans for the next week or so, and although I couldn’t say anything, I anticipated being tied up in court on the Eddie Nash case. I was the FBI representative on a four-person task force that spent years investigating Nash, an infamous Los Angeles criminal who made Hollywood fame when his story was depicted in the movies Boogie Nights and Wonderland. Nash surprised us all, however, when he pleaded guilty to violating the RICO Act on September 10, 2001. His unexpected action freed me up to concentrate on the travel agency investigation. Unfortunately, though, the next day was September 11, the day our world changed forever.
As I was heading into the office on 9/11, a call came over the Bureau radio, directing all agents to report to a secret location designated for times of national emergencies. I quickly tuned to the “happy-time” radio and learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
The next several days were nonstop as we covered leads our office developed as well as those sent by other offices. No one got a lot of sleep. It was the FBI at its best, operating in crisis mode. It was an exciting time, but our other investigations didn’t just disappear.
In between covering national security leads, I found a quiet room and called my travel agent target; I feared any delay in our communications might arouse suspicion. The October trip was still a go, he told me, and even questioned why I would assume it would be canceled. He had little concern for the events happening on the other coast, he said. He viewed the attacks as an annoyance that might inconvenience his future travel plans. His cavalier attitude made it easier for me to operate. There is always a personal as well as a bureaucratic fear that undercover agents will get too close to a target. Personal feelings could interfere with effective undercover dealings; sometimes, an agent might choose to cross that thin line separating us from them. My new friend made it easy, though. Our nation was at war with terrorism, and he considered himself unaffected. I vowed to make the time to continue my contacts.
On Saturday, September 15, as the rest of the office continued working around the clock covering thousands of leads following 9/11, I had my first face-to-face meeting with the travel agent.
I had no idea what to expect and feared it was going to be difficult to pull off the boy-lover role. I thought hard, trying to come up with an appropriate cover and some type of gimmick that might throw off my target. For limited roles in the past, I have used my Hollywood makeup contacts to produce unsightly scars across my face, temporary tattoos in highly visible places, or long, greasy hair. None of these ruses seemed appropriate for this assignment, however.
An idea came to me that seemed to have at least a reasonable chance of success: I would be handicapped. A five-dollar wooden walking stick purchased at the Salvation Army store provided the perfect crutch—and a handy weapon should I need it. Add to that a few effeminate gestures and I thought I would be ready for my grand entrance. Surely no one would suspect a fifty-year-old with an exaggerated limp of being an FBI undercover agent. To complete my outfit for the day, I wore sandals, cotton shorts, a T-shirt, and no underwear.
The travel agency was located in a 1950s-vintage apartment complex just off Hollywood Boulevard. The faded stucco exterior was in need of repair and the “security” gate at the vine-covered archway was broken. As I walked down the courtyard toward the unit at the end of the complex, I noticed that families, most of whom were Hispanic, occupied the majority of the units. Children were everywhere. It made me uncomfortable having so many innocent kids in such close proximity to an establishment I suspected of catering to pedophiles.
I knocked on the wrought iron security door several times before the travel agent answered. A gray-haired, white male, tall and thin, warmly welcomed me. With all the deliberation my cover identity demanded, I made my way into the dingy, one-bedroom apartment. I did my best to make it obvious that walking was a painful activity. The apartment was being used to house his travel agency and an adult pornography distribution business. A computer was set up in the dining room area and gay porn was stacked from the floor to the ceiling. A few posters of Thailand served as the only wall decorations.
He offered me a seat in the cramped living room. The furnishings consisted of a dirty loveseat, a chair, and a glass-topped coffee table. I awkwardly made my way past the stacks of videos. It was hardly a menacing environment but neither did I find it comfortable. Of course, my cover personality never let on.
As we made small talk, I learned the travel agent would also be the host for the October 15 trip. He described himself as a gay porn actor and producer, a veteran of over five hundred films. I didn’t attempt to pretend I was familiar with his work and was glad he didn’t ask. I realized he was noticing my lack of underwear, which served to solidify my cover, but made me a bit nervous in other ways. In retrospect, my “exposure” may not have been a wise tactic, given the sexual orientation of my target, but I guessed it was distracting, lessening his chances of thinking that I could be other than who I said I was.
Still, one concern any undercover agent has is sexual advances and especially avoidance of situations that could compromise the investigation. Women are no more than a commodity with many criminals, and their offers to set up the agent with prostitutes, girlfriends, daughters, and even wives constitute an issue requiring advance preparation. On a good day I’m a three-and-a-half out of a possible ten, so when women have come on to me, their ulterior motives seem obvious. When the situation has called for it, I have been fortunate enough to find skilled and attractive female undercover agents who were willing to humble themselves enough to accompany me as my girlfriend.
But that sort of “protection” wouldn’t work on my travel agent friend. With this assignment, I had been concerned that appearing gay might place me in the position of being offered sex or having to fend off undesirable advances from my male target. At this point, my research on NAMBLA paid off. I was not gay; I was, instead, a “boy lover.” Body hair “turned me off” and I had no desire to engage in any sexual tryst with anyone past adolescence. Another benefit of this cover was that should the travel agent offer me a boy for sex, I would arrest him on the spot. Case closed, situation resolved. I doubted, however, he would be so bold, at least this early in our relationship.
20
ENOUGH TO GO ON?
When my undercover wife and I left Todd’s house that day, we returned to the staging area to debrief with the rest of the team. I could hardly wait to tell the other agents about the weird bathtub scene we witnessed inside the house, but each attempt met with complaints. The agents had a long drive back to the office and clearly weren’t interested in the gory details of our experience inside Todd’s House of Pain. A head start on the commute home trumped the bloody bathtub story.
I returned my wife to her residence. She and I, at least, were able to laugh together and decompress from the surreal experience.
I realized as I reviewed the evidence that although I witnessed a most peculiar situation, there was no recorded evidence of my observations. The meeting was recorded, but my conversation did not include a detailed description of what I was observing. Even though I did not see evidence of a federal crime, I assumed at the very least that Todd was practicing medicine without a license, which was a violation of state law. I needed some confirmation of what I had seen.
I cleared that up with my next call. In a recorded conversation with Todd, I explained that my wife and I discussed the procedure and wanted to go forward. He emphasized the need for secrecy and expressed concern that “if the little girls have a problem and they go to the doctor, then they’re gonna have a big problem.” He bragged that he was the most qualified person outside Egypt to perform the procedure, but would only consent to doing the operation if we agreed to follow the healing process he prescribed. Todd said his bathtub visitors would have to sit in the herbal bath for at least two weeks while their genitals healed. He had employed the healing process for years without any problems, he told me.
I then proceeded to
recap the bathroom scene and told him how my wife was initially taken aback by what she observed. Todd acknowledged that two naked people in a bathtub of blood might be upsetting to the uninitiated—the understatement of the week—but it was part of his protocol. Todd told me his price to perform the procedure on both of our girls was eight thousand dollars—discounted from his usual fee. I guess he was running a two-for-one special.
Unfortunately, in all his rambling, Todd had still not admitted to performing the procedure on underage females. In a series of subsequent phones calls and e-mails, he provided references from adult patients and referred me to testimonials on his Web site. One such testimonial came from Robyn, whom Todd described as his “sex slave.” In her testimonial, she stated Todd performed her circumcision.
Todd insisted on meeting my daughters and wanted to discuss the procedure with them to insure they were mature enough to understand the need for secrecy. Todd continued the refrain that the procedure was illegal and should the girls mention to their playmates what happened we would all be arrested and sentenced to at least five years.
Todd’s description of Robyn as a sex slave raised an issue as to whether she was being held against her will. While I was at the residence she appeared free to come and go, but his comments concerned me and I decided Robyn’s status needed to be explored.
On December 4, 2002, I returned to the residence, this time without my wife, whom I claimed was ill. Todd welcomed me back into his home. Robyn brought both of us soft drinks but only Todd received his in a ceremonial fashion. After she presented Todd his drink, she kneeled down and remained at his side. Todd admitted to performing numerous illegal surgical procedures on men and women, but refused to confirm performing any of them on underage females.
Todd told me he performed the surgeries in the nude and Robyn assisted him. When I expressed concern that his nudity might be upsetting to the girls, he repeated his need to meet them to make sure they were mature enough to understand the procedure.
There was no way we were going to introduce two children into this undercover sting operation and I needed to gain criminal admissions without perpetuating the investigation beyond my meeting with Todd and Robyn. I was not sure I would ever get him to admit he performed the surgery on the anonymous ten-year-old, but he certainly was willing to enter into conspiratorial talks about performing the illegal procedure on my nonexistent stepdaughters.
Robyn was wearing a pair of very skimpy shorts and I observed a strange mark on her hip. It wasn’t a tattoo but it appeared to be a six- or eight-inch double S with an intertwined rose. When I commented on the mark, Todd said that it was a “brand” and that the S ’s stood for “sex slave.”
At one point during the afternoon, Todd excused himself to make a phone call. I used that opportunity to speak with Robyn. I asked if she voluntarily entered this relationship and she assured me she had. She even remarked that she was seeking a “sex slave sister.” She and Todd had interviewed several girls, but as she explained, it took a certain type of person to be willing to submit to such a relationship and it was difficult finding the appropriate companion. I couldn’t argue with her on that point.
Todd took me on a tour of his home, pointing out the room where he performed the piercings, a different location than where he performed the other procedures. He also showed me his office.
Next, he told me he owned the house on the next lot and offered to show me that residence. I agreed to accompany him, but before we left, he called for Robyn. When she entered the room, he informed her we were leaving and ordered her to “say good-bye.” She knelt down in front of him, kissed both his feet, then looked up as he bent over and kissed her on the lips—quite a ceremony for a trip of less than a quarter mile.
As we walked to the residence next door, I asked Todd where he found a sex slave and he said Robyn responded to his posting on the Internet. She willingly sought the role and I could find one, too, he assured me, if I knew where to look.
The residence next door was massive. He claimed it was seven thousand square feet of living space and I had no reason to doubt. What I also found was Todd’s wife! She lived in the large house and Robyn lived in the smaller residence. Each knew of the other and, according to Todd, both were content with the arrangement. When I inquired as to where he spent most of his time, he smiled. “Where do you think?” Robyn, apparently, was the object of most of his attention. I never got the chance to ask his wife how she felt about that.
Since Todd insisted the girls would have to sit in the herbal baths for two to three weeks following the procedure, we set up the surgery for the upcoming Christmas vacation, less than a month away. I left Todd and Robyn that afternoon, again stunned by what I observed, wondering if the residents of this neighborhood of multimillion-dollar estates had any idea who their neighbors were.
The next day, I called the residence, knowing Todd would not be home. I wanted to speak with Robyn and gain more criminal admissions from her. Robyn, who admitted to being twenty-three, told me she enjoyed assisting Todd with the procedures. When I asked the extent of her medical training, she replied, “Nursing assistant, certified care giver for the elderly, went to college for medical transcription, and part of the course is learning exactly what a doctor does, learning the names of the tools.” She might as well have told me she stayed once at a Holiday Inn Express; that would have been just as reassuring. When I inquired about the most bizarre experience she had assisting Todd, she responded that the most “intense” was her own circumcision, because she did not use any anesthetics. Throughout the conversation she referred to Todd as “Master” and never answered my question about whether he ever performed this procedure on minors.
Knowing we had taken this about as far as we could from an undercover perspective, the case agent prepared to execute a search warrant on the residence. On December 19, a team of FBI agents and members of the Medical Board of California conducted a search. After entering the residence, Robyn, the docile sex slave, got downright hostile. She demanded an attorney and told Todd not to speak with the agents.
The search was most successful. The agents found numerous weapons—all illegally possessed, since Todd had a felony conviction. They also discovered child pornography on the computer.
The subsequent federal prosecution of Todd and Robyn took place only because of the diligence of Mark Aveis, one of the finest Assistant United States Attorneys I ever met. Initially, the U.S. Attorney’s office rejected the case, referring it to the state for prosecution. The state also declined to prosecute. I had done some undercover work on a case Mark successfully prosecuted and when I described the details of the circumcision investigation, he agreed to take a second look. Thanks to the hard work of the case agent and Mark, the government pursued the matter and the result of their labors was the first arrest, indictment, and subsequent conviction for a violation of the 1995 Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act. Todd and Robyn both pleaded guilty and received federal prison sentences, and for my mental scrapbook I received souvenirs of the weirdest case I ever worked.
In my September 2001 meeting with the travel agent, I spoke of my desire to travel to a “safe haven” and about my lack of overseas travel experiences due to my medical condition. He warned me I had to be very careful talking about my pedophilia because, even in the gay community, it was not always an acceptable orientation. He assured me he wasn’t judgmental and welcomed me on the trip.
He was gay, but denied being a boy lover. He enthusiastically spoke of the “magical beauty” of Thailand, the joy of interacting with the Thai people, and his ability to fulfill all my specific needs. He went into great detail of how we would travel to the various tourist sites during the day and then visit the gay “scene” in the evening.
He painted a very vivid picture of the towns of Pattaya and Phuket, including the boy bars where a “bar fee” to the proper person would provide the results I was seeking. In Thailand, he told me, I could experience temples,
festivals, and markets by day, and receive sexual fulfillment at night.
As clearly as I could, I spoke of my desire for prepubescent boys. Although it was important from a prosecutorial standpoint that he agree to provide boys under eighteen, it was very awkward as an undercover boy lover to ask for a specific age. After all, I was supposed to be fulfilling a fantasy; so long as the boys looked like juveniles, what difference did an actual age make? But without that specific commitment on his part, successful prosecution was going to be difficult.
During our conversations, I spoke of how “pubic hair really turned me off.” He responded, “Just give ’em a razor and have ’em shave.” It wasn’t the answer my prosecutor would want to hear. My target was extremely careful and refused to incriminate himself. He was smart; he knew the law, even admitting to knowledge of specific statutes.
He promised to set me up with a contact in Thailand whose name he provided. My guide was familiar with the night scene, he said, and I could tell him of my particular desires. What I did on my own time after daytime sightseeing was up to me. I pushed for specifics but his response was calculated: “Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”
He handed me a travel package containing a variety of documents for the trip: travel brochures, maps, luggage tags, tour itinerary, and a list of travel dos and don’ts. He also gave me a bill for the balance due of $1,790 and said he needed the money as soon as possible. More significantly, he provided a passenger manifest naming those going on the trip. I was shocked to receive such a document. I looked at him with deep sad, soulful eyes and asked—almost begged—him to tell me which passengers were also boy lovers so I could communicate openly and honestly with my travel partners. With some hesitation, he took the list and put marks beside three of the names. All of them were “into boys,” he said.
Inside, I was bursting with satisfaction. This, in my mind, was the smoking gun. He was providing travel opportunities overseas for men he knew to be boy lovers and had even given me the name of someone who could insure that my desires would be met once I landed in Thailand. I had him! Rack up a conviction—or at least so I thought.
