Vitter’s New Orleans Prostitute Same One He Was Linked To In 2004

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The woman who calls herself, among many other names, Wendy Cortez, is a former employee of the famous “Canal Street Madam” who has acknowledged that Louisiana Sen. David Vitter was a client at her establishment more than once in the 90s. Cortez outed Vitter yesterday, saying that she was “perturbed that he portrayed himself as a politician who would bring moral authority to his office when he was using her services on the side.”

It turns out that Cortez is the same woman allegedly linked with Vitter when he ran for the Senate in 2004. At the time, Vitter said that the accusation was “absolutely and completely untrue,” and part of “crass Louisiana politics.” He continues to deny any association with Cortez, and his attorney continues to point out that Vitter was not part of the federal investigation that closed the New Orleans establishment in 2001, and that his name was never found in any records by either the lead defense attorney or the U.S. attorney during the investigation.

A former romantic partner of Cortez’s has told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that he believes Vitter was not only a client of Cortez’s, but that they also had a romantic involvement of some kind. He describes some photographs of the two of them together, one of which shows a woman with her hand on Vitter’s crotch. However, Canal Street Madam Jeanette Maier says the woman in the photos is not the woman whom she knew as Wendy Cortez.

Cortez has no known arrests for prostitution, but she does have an arrest record for forgery, parole violation, fleeing from justice, and fraudulent use of credit cards.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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