Here is a Ball you can attend for only $60 a ticket..
If they are supplying young girls to the out of towners, the nicely dressed pimps should be thrown in jail in their white fur coats.
Flashy pimp shindig stirs outrage in Atlanta
Players Ball described as fashion show
By JANE O. HANSEN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rich Addicks / AJC
Alesia Adams of the Center to End Adolescent Sexual Exploitation, was appalled to learn of next week's Players Ball.
If you can't get inside the exclusive NBA Players Association party next weekend, there'll be another "players ball" in town.
But instead of celebrating basketball all-stars, this party features celebrities of a different sort: people who call themselves pimps -- fur-coated, alligator-booted, Cadillac-driving men who make money selling women for sex. "The World's Famous Players Ball," hosted by pimp-turned-preacher Bishop Don Juan and rapper Snoop Dogg, takes place next Saturday at Club Mirage in DeKalb County.
Promoters, selling tickets for $60 apiece, hope to ride the economic wave of the crowds in town for the NBA All-Star Game festivities. But in a city that made national headlines for prosecuting pimps who exploited children, they may wish they'd staged their soiree elsewhere.
"I think having a pimp convention in and of itself is totally inappropriate, no matter where it is," said former federal prosecutor Janis Gordon, now a DeKalb State Court judge. "I think it is particularly inappropriate to have it in Atlanta when Atlanta has taken such steps to eradicate child prostitution."
Alesia Adams, who heads the Center to End Adolescent Sexual Exploitation in Fulton County, called the event "appalling."
"This is a slap in the face and we're not going to allow it to happen," she said.
Adams and other critics say they will meet Monday to plan protests and target the event's supporters. Fulton County Commissioner Nancy Boxill and representatives of the Atlanta Women's Foundation are among those planning to attend the planning meeting.
Many young women are lured into prostitution because some segments of society have viewed it as an acceptable lifestyle, said Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard, whose office has cracked down in recent years on adults who sexually exploit children.
"We ought to do whatever we can to discourage children from the belief that it is legitimate to be used by a pimp," he said. "The NBA ought to do everything in its power to make sure this type of activity is not associated with it."
The National Basketball Association disavows any connection with the Players Ball. "We're not aware of -- or sanctioning -- any event by this group," said Tim Andree, the NBA's senior vice president of communications.
The event's supporters say Atlantans are overreacting. "There will not be any children, any prostitution, any pimps, anyone selling anybody at all," said Lisa Thomas with Upscale Entertainment Inc., the Ohio company sponsoring the Players Ball. "This is just a party. I'm a woman myself. I would not condone prostitution."
Michael Maroy, whose video production company plans to produce and distribute a video of the event, described the Players Ball as a "comical novelty."
"In the hip-hop world, pimp is not a word used to describe you got prostitutes," he said. "It's a word that means extreme coolness. If it meant child pornography, these guys wouldn't associate with it."
Maroy has taped other Players Balls, "and I have never seen prostitutes. It's more or less a fashion show. The mink coats, alligator shoes, they're 'pimpish.' "
Since the 1970s, self-proclaimed pimps or "players," decked out stereotypically in furs and diamonds, have staged elaborate parties where they crown the "pimp of the year." Bishop Don Juan, a former pimp, is credited with founding the events. A preacher today, he has become somewhat of a celebrity, appearing on talk shows and in HBO videos.
Critics say the parties glorify a profession that exploits women and victimizes children.
Over the last two years, when she was an assistant U.S. attorney, Gordon successfully prosecuted 14 Atlanta pimps charged with prostituting underage girls. All but two pleaded guilty and were sentenced to three to seven years in federal prison. The other two were convicted in jury trials and sentenced to 30 years and 40 years respectively.
Gordon made her case under the federal racketeering law, which carries stiff sentences and was designed to go after the organized crime. She used videos of previous Players Balls attended by some of the defendants as evidence of their association in a criminal organization.
President Bush later met privately with Gordon and promised to see if the Justice Department could launch similar prosecutions nationally.
Nina Hickson, chief Juvenile Court judge of Fulton County, said she learned of the pimps' ball scheduled for next week when she saw an advertisement at her hairdresser's near Greenbriar Mall. "It was surreal," she said. "I said, I can't believe they would do this. On the other hand, it's just about the money."
The flier, which features three men dressed in white fur coats and hats and boasts a special appearance by the "2002 Pimp of the Year," has been widely distributed. At Greenbriar Mall, a number of sports and menswear stores have the fliers sitting on counters near cash registers.
High-profile sports events are a known draw for prostitution. Most of the 14 pimps convicted in the federal racketeering case were arrested just before the 2001 Super Bowl in Tampa, where law enforcement agents believed the pimps planned to transport young girls.
"This is the Super Bowl of basketball," Adams said of the upcoming NBA All-Star game and the festivities that surround it.
She predicted that some females at the Players Ball will be underage. "The pimps will often take the youngest girls to show off their wares," she said.
Legally, there's little law enforcement can do about the planned party, DeKalb District Attorney J. Tom Morgan said.
"We will be watching it very closely, but there's nothing we can do about it," he said. "I just wish they hadn't picked DeKalb County."
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