It’s a good time to be a pimp in Las Vegas.

The rising economy means an endless river of potential customers for the cutthroat local sex trade. Once praised for its successful anti-pandering unit, Metro’s Vice Section now finds itself shrouded in scandal. And, for some odd reason, pandering and related charges are getting resolved at garage-sale prices inside Southern Nevada’s justice system.

All that makes it a good time to be a pimp—unless, of course, you’re Ocean Fleming. A veteran of the dirty business, Fleming continues to squat in state prison more than five years after his November 2012 conviction on 23 felony counts ranging from pandering and first-degree kidnapping to coercion with force and assault with a deadly weapon. He received a life sentence from District Judge Michael Villani and has served seven years.

To no one’s great surprise, Fleming wants to get out of prison. In February he filed a petition for a post-conviction writ of habeas corpus seeking a new trial. What might have been just another waste of ink and paper from a professional hustler started to take on real weight after defense attorney Janiece Marshall was appointed to represent him. Now the Fleming appeal has cast a shadow on the police department. KLAS I-Team reporter George Knapp, who has reported extensively about the case, first reported in April that Sheriff Joe Lombardo acknowledged an ongoing FBI public corruption investigation associated with the Fleming case.

Stranger still is the string of pandering-related cases that have been settled for such small penalties that the courthouse criminal defense crowd is buzzing. Something a bit unnerving is happening. The light sentences all but advertise Las Vegas as a discount pimping paradise.

“It’s an 80-percent off sale,” Marshall said in a recent interview. “And Ocean Fleming’s not even eligible for parole until 2027.”

In her blistering supplemental brief filed in November, Marshall called out the veracity of Metro detectives, the testimony of witnesses and the quality of evidence used to convict her client. She reminded Judge Villani of the wise words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who wrote in part, “Bad men, like good men, are entitled to be tried and sentenced in accordance with the law....” She might have added another part of Black’s passage, which reads, “and when it is shown to us that a person is serving an illegal sentence our obligation is to direct that proper steps be taken to correct the wrong done without regard to the character of a particular defendant ....”

Villani recently denied Marshall’s motion for discovery, and a new trial for Fleming isn’t a certainty, but it’s impossible to deny the troubling developments in the case that have fueled a federal corruption investigation.

Marshall alleges Fleming was victimized by a corrupt conspiracy between Metro vice officers and convicted felon, rapper and escort service operator Jamal Rashid, who is also known as “Mally Mall.” Her theory is that Rashid wanted to eliminate Fleming from the competitive Las Vegas pimp trade and used a corrupt relationship with former Metro Det. Christopher Baughman, including cash payments of up to $10,000 a month, the sexual favors of Mally Mall’s prostitutes and a book-and-film deal to accomplish that goal.

Key prosecution witnesses in the case have recanted their testimony and indicated they were coached by Baughman and Chief Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Mercer, who is now married to the former vice detective. Considering Fleming was charged with strangling his prostitutes, whether they suffered substantial physical harm was important.

Normally, accusations from a smooth-talking convicted felon would be meaningless, but Baughman and at least one other detective are being accused of having “improper and undisclosed sexual and romantic relationships” with Rashid’s prostitutes, the prosecutor and even a Metro supervisor during the Fleming investigation.

In an October deposition, Baughman added more smoke to the picture when he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Investigators might find it helpful to know why Baughman made so many calls to Rashid’s phone during the Fleming case.

Not many people shed tears for pimps. Nor should they. Judge Villani was onto something back in 2012 when he told Fleming, “You need to blame yourself. Your arrogance got you in this mess. You preyed upon women with low self-esteem; you manipulated them.”

That he did. It was Fleming’s dirty business.

But now it looks like a lot of dirty business was going on.

 John L. Smith is a longtime Las Vegas journalist and author. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.