How Ex-Call Girl Helped Nab Notorious Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A former high-class call girl who worked for Heidi Fleiss in the 1990s is sharing how she helped turn in the notorious Hollywood madam.
Alexandra Datig was 20 years old when she met Fleiss.
"I was at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Boulevard, and I was handed a phone number by one of her drug-runners. On the number it said, 'Call this girl,'" she said.
Datig said hooking up with Fleiss was a means to an end.
"Meeting Heidi, for me, was an answer to a short-term problem, which was paying my rent and putting food on my table. I really didn't want to be a prostitute. That was not my plan," she said.
Asked what she was expected to do, Datig said, "I was expected to have, most of the time, just a straightforward sex act. I was given designer drugs, I was given prescription drugs, a lot of cocaine."
Datig said the tempting lifestyle — "I was paid $10,000 a day, plus jewelry, plus first-class plane tickets" — came with a heavy price.
"I was asked to go to a hotel. The client held my plane ticket and my money. And for three days, he would come and hit me on the head and pull out my hair. When he was finished hitting me, he would leave the room," she said.
Datig said most of the girls worked when they wanted to work, but they had to follow Fleiss' rules.
"You were not allowed to have long hair, you were not allowed to be too pretty, you were not allowed to wear too much makeup or be too glamorous … because someone would fall in love with you and take you away. And then she loses the business," she said.
After less than a year, Datig wanted out. She saved enough money to pursue an acting and modeling career.
Datig said Fleiss seemed reluctant to let her go.
"I showed her my portfolio and I had a conversation with her saying that I wanted to get out. And when she saw the pictures, it was almost as if it was not OK," she said.
Asked when she decided to bring Fleiss down, Datig said, "When she started to become obsessed with becoming a notorious public figure as a pimp."
That's when Datig turned to a now-retired undercover Beverly Hills police detective, who wished to remain unidentified.
"Alex called me up and introduced herself. She gave us a background and she gave us the in," he said.
By then, a task force had started an investigation into Fleiss. Datig became the key informant.
"She painted the picture of what the organization was at that high level," said the ex-detective. "What type of customers Heidi had."
"I provided credit card numbers, I provided information on air flights, on phone numbers," Datig said.
Armed with that knowledge, detectives planned to meet Fleiss at a ritzy bar.
"We knew that she was having a function there and we borrowed a Ferrari. People [were] having drinks and then she was playing the hostess. There were probably six or seven girls. I basically was able to get her phone number that night and introduce myself as a businessman. And kept it very generic … said maybe we can try to do business in the future and that'd I'd like to call her," the former detective said.
In 1993, authorities conducted a sting at the Beverly Hilton that would bring down the madam and her ring.
"We had the girls in one big room. And once they started to undress … then we called it. And the officers came in and arrested everyone," said the ex-detective. "We arrested the girls and we had another team at Heidi's house waiting to arrest her."
In the following years, Fleiss was convicted of pandering, tax evasion and money laundering. She got three years in prison.
"I was terrified for my life. I had people calling me anonymously and named, threatening to kill me," Datig said.
The threats eventually stopped.
Twenty years later, Datig has turned her life around.
She doesn't want to be known as a former prostitute, but a human trafficking survivor.
As a member of the Los Angeles County Task Force for Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Datig is helping to shape drug policy and aiding human trafficking victims.
"This is a serious issue haunting all of our communities. And it takes a village to create a prostitute, and it starts at a very young age," she said.
Datig is now writing a book about her life.
Fleiss was last reported to be living in Nevada. KCAL9 tried to contact her for this story, but was unable to get a response.
