Not long after the birth of one of Norma Jean's younger sisters, her mother became a "born again" Christian and thereafter Norma Jean and her siblings were raised as fundamental Baptists whose lives revolved around the church and Christianity. Throughout her childhood, Norma Jean believed she was chosen by God to become a missionary to Puerto Rico, and so at age 18, Norma Jean was enrolled in Philadelphia College of the Bible.

However, before she could go to college, she had to get a job. Her parents could not afford to send any of their children to college and so it was up to each child to find their own way if they wanted to further their education. After Norma Jean graduated from high school in June, 1969, she and a fellow classmate moved to New York City where they lived with her friend's Russian grandparents in the Bronx. Norma Jean got a job working as a clerk in the Empire State Building while her friend attended the local Kings College.

In January of 1970, Norma Jean decided to take a short vacation and visit her Aunt Rusty in California. She didn't know it at the time, but her plans to become a missionary were about to be derailed.

After visiting with her aunt for a week, she went to visit her Puerto Rican friends from New York who had relocated to Los Angeles and had become deeply involved in a fundamentalist religious cult. Her friends pressured her to join them and become part of the "local church." Within a week she succumbed to peer pressure and found herself as involved in the church as were her friends, even though Norma Jean had already begun to have doubts about her faith in God. During the summer of 1970, she met a cousin of one of her New York Puerto Rican friends, a man who had just been discharged from the Air Force. By November, she was sure she was in love with him and so on November 19, 1970, she became the wife of Mr. Radames Almodovar. The marriage ended three years later, with no children. By the time her marriage was over, Norma Jean had disassociated herself from the church and no longer considered herself a Christian.
To learn more about her philosophy on religion and God, click here.

For all the work she did during her on duty hours, off duty Norma Jean liked to play just as hard as she worked. She found the handsome cops she worked with difficult to resist and dated many of them. From them she learned just about every 'deviant' sex act that can be done with another human being, even though many of these acts were still felonies at the time and every cop she dated was a felon under the law. After a short while, the novelty of dating cops wore off when she discovered that very, very few of them seemed interested in reciprocating pleasure, legal or otherwise.

In 1975, Norma Jean met Victor, the man who is now her husband. He did for her what all the cops she dated had failed to do (or even try to do)- he gave her pleasure and told her it was her right as a woman to experience multiple orgasms. We'll return to their relationship later. Victor is his stage name. Those who know us, know his real name.

In 1974 Norma Jean suffered the first of three work-related traffic accidents. She hurt her back when the three wheeled Harley Davidson motorcycle, to which she had been assigned at the time, hit the car in front of her. The driver, seeing the police vehicle behind him, decided not to go through the red light and stopped suddenly, backing up his car into Norma Jean's motorcycle. Norma Jean was on disability for over a year and a half as a result of this accident, and was hospitalized on two occasions. It was during this time she met Victor. His real name is not used at his request.

In her second on duty accident, she was attacked by a Hollywood businessman. He attempted to run over her with his vehicle- but only managed to knock her down. He was arrested for assault, of course, but the City of Los Angeles did not want to prosecute a member of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. As city property, Norma Jean was not allowed to sue him for the physical and emotional damage he caused her.

The third and final accident occurred on April 18, 1982, at 11:10 P.M. The police car she was driving on Hollywood Blvd. was rear-ended by a very intoxicated man in a stolen car, who, as it turned out, was an illegal alien and had just committed an armed robbery. He fled the scene of the accident involving Norma Jean, but was apprehended moments later after a brief pursuit around the block with a couple of several undercover cop cars which happened to be right around the corner when the accident occurred. The suspect was released shortly after being booked into the Hollywood jail, while Norma Jean was still in the emergency room having x-rays taken of her reinjured back and neck. That was the last day she ever worked for the Los Angeles Police........

Norma Jean was already very disillusioned with the LAPD and she was angry with her co-workers for their corrupt activities (the burglary and drug ring, murder-for-hire- ring, sex with 10 year old girls, etc.). This accident was the final straw. She knew that the man who hit her would never be prosecuted- and just like the situation with the Hollywood businessman who had tried to run her over, she knew that she could not count on the City of Los Angeles to be concerned for her well being. After completing the accident report, she went home and in a symbolic gesture of cutting her ties with the LAPD, she tore up her uniform and cut up her shoes. To replace them would be very expensive and she didn't want to be tempted to go back on her decision. She had vowed that she would never again return to work for the LAPD.

On September 17th, 1983, seven cops with their guns drawn knocked at her door to arrest her on one count of pandering. Her unfinished manuscript was confiscated by the police as "evidence" of her crime and she was taken, in handcuffs, to the downtown LA police headquarters where she once worked. The pandering charge stemmed from her attempt to fulfill the alleged sexual fantasy of a former friend who was still a traffic officer. The "friend," Penny Isgro, had come to Norma Jean's home wearing a wire, and later admitted during Norma Jean's trial that she had helped set up Norma Jean to prevent her from writing an expose of the Los Angeles Police. Through the perhaps deliberate incompetence of her attorney (whom she later successfully sued) Norma Jean was given no defense whatsoever during her brief trial, and as a result, was convicted of that one count of pandering- which was a felony.

For making a phone call on behalf of her very unattractive fifty- year old, six foot two, two hundred fifty pound "friend", Norma Jean was facing a mandatory three to six year incarceration in the California State Penitentiary. The judge postponed sentencing until after a 90 day psychiatric evaluation could be done to determine whether or not Norma Jean posed a "threat to society" for her crime of trying to fulfill her friend's sexual fantasy. The judge allowed her two weeks to put her affairs in order, before she was to return, the day before Thanksgiving 1984, to be remanded into custody.

She met Victor in 1975. An actor, writer and architect, he was everything she had ever wanted in a life partner. His stage name Victor Savant.... means "victory in knowledge." Although it took her six months to realize it, Victor was her "grand passion." They dated each other many years and were deeply in love but they had no plans to marry. Neither one of them believed that the State has a right to license personal relationships, and as atheists, they certainly did not believe in being married for religious reasons.

Norma Jean and Victor were shattered by her arrest and conviction, and now that she was going to be incarcerated for three months, she needed Victor's support more than ever. The thought of being away from each other for 90 days was more than either could bear, so they were married on November 19, 1984, just a little over a day before she went to prison.

Unbeknownst to her, Victor or the judge, Norma Jean would be held in solitary confinement during her stay as a guest of the State of California. She was told that it was "for her own good..... to protect her from other inmates because of her police background." It was also, no doubt, for her own good that she was handcuffed to herself and to two guards as she was escorted from her tiny cell to the offices of the psychiatrists who were to examine her. The psychiatric evaluation itself took only a little over three hours, but she was kept in solitary confinement for over two months before being shipped back to county jail and then to see the judge.

When she was released from solitary confinement on January 9th, 1985, the judge, who noted that the report said Norma Jean wasn't a danger to anyone, felt that the mandatory three to six year sentence was "cruel and unusual punishment" as applied to her. Norma Jean had no prior criminal record, so instead of sending her to prison for the mandatory minimum sentence, he put her on three years probation. At the time, the District Attorney's office made a public statement that they had no plans to appeal the judge's sentence.

Having been denied the opportunity to speak out during her trial about what had been done to her, Norma Jean decided that going back to the public to state her case was the only thing she could do. She continued her outspoken media campaign against the corruption within the Los Angeles Police Department. [Her prosecutor, Richard Weber, in a later interview with American Justice, stated that Norma Jean had a "vivid imagination" when it came to the corruption on the LAPD, a statement which was completely invalidated with the revelations of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent Rampart Division scandal, among other police scandals.....] Her constant appearances on television further enraged the powerful LAPD officials and District Attorney who had hoped to silence her with the "taste of prison" imposed on her by the judge. She also lobbied to have her manuscript and research material returned to her, volumes of research and typed pages taken as evidence of her "pandering efforts" even though none of it was ever used in court- and it was never returned to her either.

Her high profile public appearances were rewarded when on December 6th, 1985- eleven months after she was sentenced to probation, the Los Angeles District Attorney's office filed an appeal to overturn her probation sentence on the grounds that the law mandated a three year minimum prison term on the first offense. According to the District Attorney Ira Reiner, Norma Jean's crime was "worse than rape or robbery" or even a violent assault on someone, and further, that she had compounded her "crime" by writing a book which would cause "disrespect for law and order." In the appellate brief filed in the State Supreme Court of California, the District Attorney made over 57 references to the "harm to society" that would be caused by Norma Jean's book if it were published.

The relationship between the professors and the sex workers quickly soured when Norma Jean realized that the sex workers were being lied to and that the professors who wanted other academics to come and meet the sex workers from around the world, couldn't themselves be bothered to listen to or treat the sex workers from Los Angeles with respect. The conference, there after referred to as ICOP, had mixed results.

Aside from the problems with the University and the academics, the sex worker portion of the conference was well worthwhile. A few of the plenary sessions which were planned and sponsored by sex workers (and not the academics) turned out to be the most popular and certainly the most interesting of the conference.

Former US Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders was the keynote speaker of the conference- invited by C.O.Y.O.T.E. LA and the other sex workers- and was by far the most well attended function of the conference. However, when she was first invited to speak- by Norma Jean- the two professors from CSUN twice cancelled her attendance. The first faux pas was when one of the professors mistakenly believed that Dr. Elders had been the former Secretary of Education and didn't believe that her presence at the conference had any relevance. He was patiently informed that as the former US Surgeon General, Dr. Elders had a great deal to contribute to a conference which would address the health issues of sex workers.

A new invitation was issued to Dr. Elders, but because of the blunder made by the CSUN professors, her speakers' bureau now demanded a 50% deposit for her speaker's fee. The sex workers assured the professors that they did not expect the University or the professors to raise the money for the speakers' fee for Dr. Elders and would raise the money for the deposit. However, before they were given the opportunity to do so, the other professor cancelled Dr. Elder's scheduled appearance, stating that the university would not pay the $10,000 speaker's fee requested by Dr. Elder's agency.

The sex workers did raise all the money for her fee and Dr. Elders was the keynote speaker for the conference. Ironically, the professors and other CSUN academics made certain they took pictures with her after her speech. But because the sex workers- and not the academics- had raised all the money for her speaker's fees, Norma Jean felt that it should be the sex workers from developing countries who spent time with her after the luncheon, so Norma Jean whisked her away from the fawning academics and made it clear that the academics who had contributed nothing, were not welcome to spend any time with her.

Throughout April and May of 1997, she felt certain that she never wanted anything to do with "causes" again. She had plenty of other projects that could occupy her time, including resuming her many book projects and her artwork. There was no shortage of possibilities and the temptation was strong to put her many years of involvement in the sex worker rights' movement behind her and get on with her own life.

Still, once in your blood, activism is a difficult passion to stifle. Ever since the conference, a male sex worker from San Francisco had been crashing on Norma Jean's couch. Together they discussed the possible ways in which to remain activists but have more impact and see more results from their work than their efforts within C.O.Y.O.T.E.'s political boundaries. The lessons learned from their unpleasant interface with the CSUN academics during ICOP must be incorporated into any new project they started.

By June, 1997, Norma Jean and Steve G. prepared a proposal for a new, international organization-- one that would be able to raise money through tax- deductible donations AND allow health professionals, law enforcement officials and others to associate with them. The blatant political nature of C.O.Y.O.T.E. precluded such associations in the past, and since C.O.Y.O.T.E. was not a registered organization, raising money had been an almost impossible task. As a non-profit 501 (c) 3, the new organization would not have to be funded solely from the pockets of the few dedicated LA area activists.

While preparing for its first art exhibit being planned for the fall of 1998, ISWFACE was approached by a man who owned a national historic landmark former brothel in Butte, Montana, about the possible purchase of the building for use as a museum and cultural center. At the time, neither Steve or Norma Jean knew where Butte, Montana was- geographically- and had no plans to relocate the ISWFACE headquarters based on Los Angeles.

At first, all the people of Butte seemed to be extremely friendly and open to the sex worker organization. In late August of 1998, the State Historic Society and other local government officials presided over the dedication of a park to the women of the red light district. A plaque in their honor was placed at the park/ parking lot entrance which now occupied land upon which a former luxury brothel once stood. Metal silhouettes of working women and their customers - artwork created by the local high school students- lined the park on all sides. How could ISWFACE resist a place that actually recognized the contributions to the community made by the women of the red light district? And so an agreement was reached with the owner and the first steps were made to purchasing the Dumas.

During the fall and winter months of 1998 through 1999, ISWFACE poured thousands of dollars into the project. They paid off all the outstanding bills owed by the man from whom they were buying the Dumas. The intention was to move ISWFACE's office to Butte, and with it came the president of ISWFACE- Norma Jean- with her husband Victor and Steve G. the ISWFACE vice president.

One of the fund-raising activities that ISWFACE planned was a biker rally (The Dumas Brothel Biker Run 1999) which was timed to correspond with the annual Sturgis, South Dakota biker activities. Initially the biker event was being planned by two members of a local Los Angeles Biker Club, who asked Norma Jean to design a flyer for them which would be given to biker groups in Southern California and mailed to other biker organizations nationwide. Some of the activities mentioned on the flyer included a contest for the "hairiest butt and biggest boobs," which was supposed to be a joke.

Early in January, 1999, Norma Jean called the Butte Chamber of Commerce to get some information for the brochures she and Steve were preparing. She was informed by one of the Chamber staff that there was a bit of misunderstanding up there and several townspeople wanted to know what, exactly, was ISWFACE planning to do in Butte?

Apparently some illiterate  and ignorant individuals misread the organization's proposal and thought that ISWFACE was planning a summer-long sex festival rather than the sex worker festival that was being organized. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on their part that some of the "town fathers" got things mixed up, but before you know it, Norma Jean was back in the middle of a raging controversy. A town meeting (dubbed a debate) was organized by some local law offices, and Norma Jean and Steve went up to Butte in the middle of an icy cold January to answer questions and counter charges being leveled against them.

In the end, the "Concerned Citizens" were not able to stop the summer project and biker rally, although there were enough editorials both for and against ISWFACE printed in the Montana Standard to fill up the infamous Berkeley Pit (a toxic waste dump in Butte). The group of "concerned" people consisted mainly of moldy old windbags- men who had once run the town government WHILE the brothels were still operating- now upset that an outsider was coming in to their town to preserve a piece of history they thought was best forgotten. Other members of this elite group include a self-styled writer wanna-be whose Christian "values" allowed her to dress more like a whore than the real whore herself, Norma Jean.

...said in response to charges made by "Concerned Citizens" that ISWFACE planned to bring wild sex orgies to Butte, Montana.... a much different event than the Sex WORKER Festival that was the intended summer program. Probably wishful thinking on the elderly gentlemen's part....

Aside from her activism, Norma Jean occasionally had the opportunity to work on her own projects. Not surprisingly, her personal projects also reflect the sex worker issues and are the subject of the many book projects she is working on. One of her long term book projects is "Cops, Hos, Preachers and Politicos- Commercial $ex $candals in America" which is a look at the inevitable scandalous consequences of enforcing victimless crime laws against consenting adults. She is also working to finish her book covering her 18 months in prison- of the same title as her cartoon book- "Prose and Cons- Postcards from Prison."