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Aug. 28, 2025 - Jim Fetzer
39:11
REAL DEAL SPECIAL (26 August 2025): Amanda "Mandy" Pritchard Speaks Out on Sex Trafficking
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This is a real deal special reported interview with Amanda Rickardson who actually was involved in some taudry events not of her own willingness, not voluntary, related to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Mandy, please tell us your story.
How did all this come about?
I'm so sympathetic to you, and I believe the American public needs to understand what really happened here better from the point of view of some of those who were.
What do you think of some of those who were taken advantage of your story?
Well, thank you for having me on here.
My story started out growing up.
My mom was my best friend.
I grew up in the church with my Nana.
I was bullied so I didn't have, like, a group of friends.
I was always kind of an outcast and hung out with my mom and her friends or, like I said, my Nana.
When I got into my high school years, my dad helped me get into a private high school and I was doing dual and enrollment to get college credits.
And when I was fifteen, I ended up, what I would later find out, it was a calculated way for gangs to recruit or for traffickers to recruit girls.
They implement traumas.
I was raped.
I was supposed to just be hanging out with a friend and she ended up leaving me and the older guy whose house it was, it was just me and him there and he date raped me.
I felt like I felt ashamed.
I felt like I did something wrong.
My mom had always warned me about, you know, things that happened to her when she was growing up and she didn't want the same thing to happen to me.
So I didn't tell my mom and I spent less time, less and less time at church kind of isolated, which was their goal.
I didn't, I didn't actually get directly involved in the scene until I was about 18.
And it was advertised to me as a way to cover up my own feelings.
come up with quick money to pay for a university because at the time I was just enrolled in community college and I got propositioned to model for a tattoo artist and I I was embarrassed at first because they wanted me to you know model in a in bikinis.
We had gone to Victoria's Secret and got like their bathing suit line and I was making a portfolio.
And at first it was really uncomfortable because you know, I'm having someone take pictures of me, but they desensitized me by saying, you know, you're already like, you're in Florida, you know, bikinis are just, it's just, you're just in a bathing suit.
It's just somebody taking pictures of you.
It's not any different than, you know, how you spend your summers anyway.
And, you know, of course, once I would get signed to model, then my college would be paid for and I, you know, I wouldn't have to be staying at university college or at community college.
That led to where I had met Hulk Hogan.
And I've only recently gone public about Hulk being involved with it because it But there's a lot of.
Let me just ask that.
You said you used a phrase date break that's often associated with a drug that puts women under and they're sexually assaulted and they have no memory or recollection.
Was a drug involved in that incident early on?
Yes.
I didn't remember exactly being like the person having sex with me.
I remember pushing him off of me.
I, you know, I was I was fifteen.
I was still I was still innocent and I was very uncomfortable.
You know, it was the first time that someone had touched me the way that he was trying to touch me.
And I kept pushing him off.
I remember that.
And then I remember him somehow getting me into the bedroom with him on the bed.
And then I, the rest is a complete blur up until I was, I came up with the idea to say I had to go to the bathroom because I figured, you know, I would be able to go to the bathroom by myself.
But he went in there with me and, um, you know, I was hurting physically.
Um, so, you know, I I know that he he raped me.
I don't, you know, you just you just know, like there was there was blood and, um, you know, I I I knew I knew I knew I had been raped.
But it was when for various reasons you didn't report even to your mother.
Well.
Well, um, it was it was fear.
I my mom, like, I didn't want to break her heart and I felt like I had done something wrong.
Yes.
I was brought up in the church, so, um, you know, and I just had to go to Catholic Church.
It was it was not denominational.
All right.
So, you went up in community college, you wanted to go to a university modeling good provide.
money that would enable you to do that.
Victoria's Secret, a connection, meeting Hulk Hogan.
Tell us more.
So I was in Florida and I got introduced to Hulk Hogan who had a bunch of men who were interested in my photos.
And I spent a lot of time with him at various venues and events.
And I eventually got invited to go and stay with him.
So I I stayed with him and I was kind of like his arm candy when he would go to I don't know, just like they were like it was like a business meeting but not, you know, he kind of like paraded me around.
What were you already engaged in sex relations with Hulk Hogan?
No, no.
That didn't that didn't happen until.
Until later on, I was around him on and off for like 15 years.
So the memories kind of blend together on the timeline.
Was he introducing you to other men with whom you had sex relations or no?
Yeah, it eventually led to that.
It led to that.
At this point, you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old.
Yeah.
Continue.
So after I had started escorting.
with the men that he had introduced me to, there was a girl who I had met at one of the spots that Hulk would frequent.
He introduced me to her and she was telling me about how she would go on all these Vegas trips with her husband who would later be another trafficker of mine.
And we started, I say we, but I didn't really have access to the phones because there's like a hierarchy of roles that the girls play and the one who was closest to the trafficker had the phone and the ads and the client's numbers, things like that, the like especially when you're first involved with these people, like you don't have access to any of that.
Like it's when people are calling for your ad or like my ad, for example, they're calling thinking that they're speaking to me, but they're actually speaking to the other girl who was like his sidekick.
And they taught me how they wanted their the dates done.
Like it was my first experiences being in hotel rooms instead of, you know, clients' houses or, you know, it was.
it was like kind of like how I guess they describe it and you know, sorry, this stuff's uncomfortable to go into details about, but so they would post ads and the clients would call her and then I would go and do the dates.
There was a specific way that they wanted them done, you know, get it was a lot of getting used to asking people for money and learning how to avoid the cops and eventually the end goal was Vegas, but they train you on how they want you to do the dates and then you would go to Miami because that's the closest scenery to Vegas and then we would drive across the country and stop at a bunch of of different cities along the way.
And, you know, every city as we were approaching it, there would be an ad posted.
And, you know, if someone called the phone, we would go and do the appointment.
And then whenever we finally got to Vegas, we would always be there for a few weeks at a time.
One time it was for a few months.
So these were sex for pay.
I mean, it was a form of prostitution.
They were training you how to dress, how to act.
I mean, the one with the phone was basically your manager, your booking agent.
You know, in another context, a pimp.
But these were fairly affluent, wealthy to do men who wanted you to be with them for escort and sex, right?
Yes.
Go ahead.
I guess the training process when we were in the casinos, there's a whole book of like, there's a way to respect the casinos.
So this way they don't.
call security on you or, you know, the casinos understand that drugs and sex and money, like, it all go hand in hand.
So if you're not walking up to the tables and taking money away from the casino, if you're not drinking or doing anything to draw attention to yourself, like, they leave you alone.
The girls, us.
They teach you how to be disconspicuous, really.
Yeah.
How to be a plane.
How to appear just to be a regular customer there at the casino.
No, no special affiliation or attachment.
Got it.
Yeah.
Continue.
Yeah.
And my trafficker would have me and the other girl.
Most of the time we would be sitting at a penny slot machine or if the slot machines were usually always somewhere close to the entrance to the casino hotel.
So that was the go to spot to wait for a customer to approach you because they usually always came to you.
If they didn't actually physically walk to you, you know, you'd make eye contact.
I don't really recall any time that I ever talked to a guy and like accidentally talked to somebody who didn't know what was going on.
Like every John that I ever approached or a guy that ever approached me, there was never, I don't recall there ever being a misunderstanding.
Like, you know, I was there for a job, not to mingle or, you know, party or hang out or whatever.
And, you know, one, once we would get a client, the trafficker, he would.
would always be on the casino floor watching from a distance and then um you know he would he would after we would go up to the room or, you know, it wasn't, it was usually just one of us at a time, But he would be waiting in the car in the parking garage.
So when we called that we were done with the date, you know, we would just get in the car with him, give him the money and then go to the next casino, because it's disrespectful to the casino to have a client and then go back out on the floor.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
That's protocol.
Yeah.
Now.
You were traveling to various cities.
You wind up in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas, of course, a lot of money, a lot of glamour.
I mean, I can certainly understand why it's kind of the top market for sex and drugs and a host of other gambling, all that.
Was Hulk very much involved in all this or was Hulk at this point no longer?
He was more of the facilitator.
He would find the girls, recruit the girls, and then, you know, like he did with me, I ended up with a trafficker.
Like an actual, like, go across the country and, you know, do dates and give him all my money.
So, you know, I, yeah, I never saw him on that side of things where he was like setting the girls up and having like pimping them out directly.
He was more of like the, yeah, the, the middleman to introduce.
No, Mandy, you're giving, you're having sex, you're being paid.
I imagine there was kind of a routine to it.
Would you get the money in advance?
How did that go?
After sex, I mean, there had to be a way you were told to do it it, right?
A sequence.
What was it?
So typically, typically speaking, it was always, you know, if you wanted a full body massage or, you know, you wanted my time, like you were just paying me for my time.
This way, if it was ever a bust, you like, that was one of the warnings.
Like, I would make sure that I never said anything about sexual favors or what was going to, what we were going to do.
Like, it was never flat out said, you know.
Who knows who's wearing the wire?
Yeah, exactly.
And so whatever money for the full body massage, I would always get that before we got to the room.
Once we got to the room, that would involve personal massage, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, full body massage, you know, full body, everybody part, that's just their language.
And so get the money.
And when we finally would get to the room, I would say like, I would go to use the bathroom, but I would make a phone call and I was always instructed to make that phone call loud enough so that person knew I was making the phone call.
So they don't have somebody with them unless they do any harm to you.
It wasn't it wasn't it It wasn't for my protection.
That's how they painted it.
But it was more so for the trafficker because it wasn't about quality.
It was quantity.
He didn't care what the John was thinking.
you know he just wanted to go to the next date so all in all it would be within 15 minutes i'd be out of there 98 of the time so i'd go in the bathroom i'd call my trafficker loud enough to say, hey, I got the money.
I'll call you when we're done, you know, something along those lines.
And then a couple of hundred bucks or more.
I mean, my quota was 3,500 a night when I was in the big cities.
So it was usually like, I think when it was low or if I had already hit my quota, it would be 500, but I usually aimed for 1,200.
So I get that.
I mean, for just for me to go in the room.
So I put that money in my shoe, right?
That was another, another part of the protocol, like never take your shoes off.
Always wear shoes that are a little smaller so they don't like, you know, so they're harder to, you know, take off or whatever.
And you would have a clutch.
So, you know, if someone's just looking at you, they're going to think the money's in the clutch because there will it was a they'll lead to that, but there's usually, you know, if a guy wanted to be aggressive, he would have a reason to.
So the goal was for me to make sure that my trafficker got the money.
He would always say like, number one rule, you know, you leave with the money.
He takes all the money, right?
It was 1200, he gets 1200.
You.
Yeah.
Eventually, that's what it is.
Does any come back to you?
Are you sort of on a salary or originally it was 50-50, but it wasn't like, okay, I made 1200.
Here's 600 for you.
Here's 600 for me.
Originally, it would be, so I'm giving you half of my money.
So now I've got 600, right?
But we're staying at four and five star hotels.
Half of that room for the night, regardless of if there were two other girls there or not, half of that room came out of my expenses too.
So now I've got, you know, 500 or 400, give or take.
And then we would also always have a rental car.
So half of the rental car for that day.
Then we're also eating at Hell's Kitchen or whatever, you know, fancy restaurant.
And then the clothing, which he would always make a point., you leave with what you came with.
And so, like, you know, it's not like the clothes were even mine.
You know, by the end of the day, you're not making a lot of money out of this.
No.
And so by the, I want to say it was the second Vegas trip that I took.
By that time, you know, he convinced me to just be all in and, um, you know, gave me the illusion of having nice things.
Like I would get to pick out the Maserati or BMW or help him find the yacht that we would buy.
But everything went in the business name.
It never went in my name.
And he would always, you know, friendly reminder that, you know, you leave with what you came with.
with as in like you know if you leave you have nothing you leave you mean if you got out of the bracket you would go with only what you came in with yeah okay which whatever is a pervasive control mechanism yeah you're not going to gain benefits from us no matter how much you may have invested time effort etc Yeah,
I mean, there would be times where he would bring it up because I would get upset because I needed to go to the dentist or whatever.
And like he wouldn't take me.
He would just, you know, string me.
along, but there was always we had to go to a different city or, you know, something would always come up.
So the things that I really needed to get taken care of.
Would they take care of basic health needs?
I mean, you got a bad tooth?
I mean, that's something they ought to take care of.
No.
I remember I like, thought if I told him it was hurting that he would like, it would make him care and, you know, do it, make the appointment.
So I remember I would like fake and say that I was in a lot of pain when I wasn't.
But I knew that, you know, it's a tooth and it's, you know, got a cavity.
It's going to hurt eventually.
So I told him that it was hurting way before it ever did.
And he's he's still he still wouldn't take me.
And that was one of the red red flags that, oh, maybe he's not my friend because, you know, they're so manipulative.
So you think like, you know, they care about you.
He's again, he's not your friend.
Absolutely right.
He's exploiting you.
He's a businessman.
He's using you to make a lot of money.
he really he just needs you to be able to do your thing go ahead Did this event culminate?
Did you get out a lot?
How long were you in Las Vegas?
I mean, there were multiple trips.
So, you know, the longest I had been there for I stayed there for the entire off season one year and the quota was still 3500 a night, but a lot of that was pre orchestrated.
Like whoever had the phone was my bat trafficker.
I just call him Vegas, but he had been doing it since the 80s.
So he was well connected and they would store people in the phone based off of the cities.
So they would just search Nevada and then all of the people that were in that area would pop up and they would reach out to them.
So you're saying you were expected to bring in $3,500 a night.
Yeah.
Which I only had a problem doing a couple of times, which, you know, there were repercussions for not coming up with all of the money.
So, would that be like three tricks or $3,500 to put it together?
Yeah.
Yeah, roughly three.
And that leads me to this also.
So, whenever the date protocol, um, so, you know, the money's tucked in my shoe.
I, you know, made it known that I have someone waiting outside for me.
And I would, um, and my traffickers would be call me like fifteen, ten or fifteen minutes after I called him, right?
And leading up to him calling me, he would do that if I didn't call him a second time.
Because what the goal was is that either I ask the customer, the client for more money, you know, hey, you gave me this money for my time, but if you want me to do anything with you, I need more money.
So between five and 1200 dollars, I'm not doing anything.
It's just for me to come up here with you.
And I would ask my trafficker, like, why wouldn't I just ask for all the money up front?
And he explained to me that, like, he he said that once you once you get the most money that they're willing to pay for you to do anything and then they're all worked up and they're expecting something, they're more likely to give you more money when you tell them that you're not going to do anything with them.
He made it make sense.
So I would tell the customer, like, okay, I need, you know, more money to do anything.
Now I know that he's not a cop because cops don't actually give you money.
So now we can talk freely and say, like, oh, you want, you know, I don't know what I can say on that.
I don't know what I can say on this, but you know, you want X, Y and Z. That's going to cost X, Y and Z. So most of the time they'd be upset and, you know, settle for, you know, bare minimum and I'd still be out of there within fifteen minutes or I would call my trafficker back.
Now this is the second phone call and I'm telling him, hey, I got X amount of money more.
And then depending on how much that person gave me and what he wanted, that would, you know, up to thirty minutes, up to an hour.
But as soon as it was done, it was over.
But more, more often.
More often than not, the well, the other times when they wouldn't settle for it, you know, they'd get upset or whatever, but they know that I have someone who's on the phone that knows where I am.
So they're, you know, I've had guns pulled out at me and stuff, but, uh, like I said, my trafficker made it very clear, like, the number one goal is to come out with the money.
So he kind of like built me up to feel like I was untouchable, because what are they going to do?
You know, put their hands on you, kill you, and then what, the cops come.
And there were so many times too, the Johns would threaten to call the cops, and it was almost humorous, like, what are you going to tell them that I wouldn't have sex with you?
Like you were trying to pay a prostitute, you know?
There was never any illusion that this was they were all saving up from all these tricks for your college fund, right?
There was never a promise that when you left the business that you'd get a payoff that was accumulating for you so you could do other things with your life.
I mean, that wasn't a part of anything.
No, I mean, after, you know, it was obvious that, you know, I wasn't getting an official modeling career out of this, you know.
I wasn't one of the chosen ones for that.
I never really put too much thought into it, but I still always had the illusion that eventually I would get out, that I would take everything that they were teaching me, and then I would do it on my own and, you know, still go to college.
I had that like false illusion, but you tell yourself whatever you need to to get through the night when, you know, you can't look yourself in the mirror.
Like, it's going to get better.
It's going to get better.
Something's going to change.
How many years are going to be now?
How long are you involved in all this?
I mean, I don't really have the time line mapped out in my mind right now.
I'm just kind of throwing out facts because it's our first time talking.
It wasn't her first time talking, but yeah.
A couple of years anyway.
Yeah, yeah, definitely a couple of years.
How are you, how are you able to make an escape?
I mean, you're not still involved.
No, I was rescued by a nonprofit organization about three years ago and I stayed in one of their safe houses for about two years and did extensive trauma resolution, rapid resolution and had a team of advocates and therapists.
So it's, it's taken a lot to get here.
And I mean, I still have difficulties and I get emotional from different things that happen, like normal everyday life stuff that, you know, it makes it harder to function.
But I don't look at it like I'm a victim.
I know that less than two percent of people make it out and they make it very difficult to.
And even when you do get out, there's this trauma bond that makes a lot of girls go back.
Even while I was at the safe house with other girls, I there were only two or three other ones that made it through the program and didn't go back to it.
Some of them had addictions or, you know, whatever was going on, but there was it was still surprising.
how many survivors have a difficulty to detach themselves from the people who are just using you.
Did you ever make your way to New York City?
I did, but it was very, it was very brief.
There were like birthday parties and stuff that we would go to up there.
I lived in Ocean City for a brief time.
And while we lived in Ocean City, of course, we would go to Atlantic City casinos every night for the most part, but there were a few occasions where something was going on.
So we would go to Manhattan.
And my trafficker also wanted us to, me and one other girl.
It was mostly just me and her that like were the regular.
There would be other girls that would try to get recruited or whatever, but they didn't stay.
So when it came to the high paying clients, it was just me and one.
I think out of the years that I spent traveling, I mean, I can count on one hand probably how many girls were long term.
But he wanted us to, he used to, he used to joke and say that, um, he I don't know if I can curse on here.
Or you can.
Okay.
So he would say that this was the Build a Bitch program.
And we were.
Build a Bitch.
Build a Bitch.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he would slip in little, you know, demeaning stuff like that and turn it around to like say, you know, that's not an insult.
Like, you're calling me a ho.
Like, how can you throw the words high end in before it and like make me believe that, oh, I'm a high end ho.
So this is okay.
Like, no, it's so degrading.
But that's the programming that they do.
But anyway, it was on this Build a Bitch program that he had going.
And when we would travel, he would explain to me, I didn't, I didn't pay attention to things.
You know, maybe I knew from, you know, in passing on TV, seeing that Jersey girls had dark hair and tan, or, you know, of course California's got the Valley girls with blond hair or whatever.
But he took it to a whole new level.
And he used to always tell us, whatever city we went to, he wanted us to be adaptable so we could be whatever that client wanted.
And, you know, people who live in certain cities, they like the kind of girls that are, you know, representing those cities.
So we would go shopping and just Manhattan was one of the places where it was like you've made it, you know, if you can walk through here.
And I remember him going to a fur coat store, which I still don't understand that.
I still like, I don't think that's a thing.
But he he would like to get us to like feel the New York feel and appreciate the history.
And, you know, this is where it all started for him because he'd been doing it since the 80s.
Um, you know, but teaching us the different cultures and what different cities guys looked for and kind of like pairing that up and having us go to the salon and, you know, have tanned in certain cities.
It was being able to adaptable.
One of his mantras was always, pretend to be the person you want to be because it's the easiest person to be.
And I remember him saying that whenever I would be self conscious of an outfit that he wanted me to wear because someone else wanted me to have that.
And, you know, we would pretend like we made it through modeling and we were just live models and this was our personal runway.
Was there ever any overlap with Jeffrey Epstein, Elaine Max?well in that crowd?
Not with my Vegas trafficker.
But not directly with my Vegas trafficker, but some of his, some of the clients that I met through my Vegas trafficker.
I know like I, I'm not trying to gossip or point names or specifics, but there were clients that were attached to Ghislaine.
I don't recall ever meeting her, like talking to her or anything, but I know that they were attached to her.
And then, like just celebrities or whatever that have been, you know., it's known that they know her.
And then as far as Jeff, I I met him more times than I can count at Hulk's Mansion.
Like, from really to really?
Where was where was Hulk's Mansion?
I I don't I don't name the story.
In what city?
In what city?
I mean, it was in Florida.
I'll say that much.
Okay, it was in Florida.
Yeah.
And many times Jeffrey Epstein was there and you met him.
Yeah, he wasn't there like in consistent time frames, but, um, you know, it was over the course of fifteen years.
of 15 years I've seen him.
And like I said, more times than I can count.
Impressions?
Did you have any impressions?
He was charming.
He was, well, just I mean, I don't know, they carried themselves pretty similar, that group, you know, the less you talk, the more they respect you.
So it wasn't like I really asked too many questions.
Yeah.
Mandy, based on your experience, what would you like other young women to learn?
How could they benefit from what you have lived through and seem to have survived intact?
Looking back, the one of the biggest regrets I have from when all this happened was I let people get in my head and take me away from the people that cared about me.
I had friends who even in high school, I had friends that were warning me about the group that I started hanging around which led to my trafficking.
They were connected to it.
And I actually distanced myself from them because I believed that something was wrong with them.
So if you get warnings from your friends about a crowd or if anything happens where you feel like you need to keep it a secret, secrets keep you sick.
And the people around you that care about you, if they're telling you to watch out for someone, they might see something that you don't see.
So to take the people that love you's advice, because the people that don't have your best interests at heart are very manipulative and convincing.
I mean, I had family dinners with my trafficker and fed his three year old daughter at the dinner table.
And that was how they got me to open up about my childhood experiences and then find things out about me that they used to their advantage.
Find out, you know, what I'm afraid of, what traumas I had.
And they pretended to care and love me.
And it took me years to figure out that the people that loved me were the people that they took me away from.
Mandy, that's very touching.
It's very kind of you to share this, these events, these experiences of your life with me.
I'm very much in your heart dad and How do you how do you feel about life today?
I feel inspired.
I feel like all the times that God told me to hold on, even at the lowest points where it would just be one passing thought of a memory of me and my Nana reading the Bible and her teaching me about not treating other people wrongly just because they did something bad to me.
Like I would have random memories come up out of the blue and it would give me this strength to holdth to hold on.
And today, I feel like I'm so glad that I never gave up because now I get to be a voice and help others and spread the awareness and hopefully the right people hear it that can create change.
I will not ask other survivors to come forward because I know the real risk in that.
And it's heavy.
It's really heavy.
And even just talking like about, yes, I had sex for money, like even hearing you repeat it back to me, it's heavy.
It really is.
But the risk doesn't outweigh the reward.
And I know that my story and my insight, like it's very uncomfortable to share about it, but it'll get easier the more I do it.
And I truly believe that this is God's plan for me to take what the devil meant for evil and turn it to good.
And I I love that other survivors, I get to be the person that they talk to about things for the first time.
And I get to give them advice and walk them through hard things.
And people give people resources to get out of it and advice on how to stay out of it and deal with the nightmares that come when you're trying to reintegrate to society.
So I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be right now.
And I feel I feel so much love and support.
I'm getting more connected with my church.
And just there's so many people around me that love me and even online, people I haven't met face to face, the prayers.
I just I feel encouraged and hopeful and I'm scared for the future.
I am, but I have faith that things are going to work out the way they're supposed to for the world.
Well, Amanda Pitcher, Mandy, I'm so grateful to you for sharing all this with me and with our audience.
You're going to be an inspiration to many.
I cannot thank you enough.
This Jim Fetzer with a real deal special with a very real person who has lived a very real life.
It's been gritty.
It's been tough.
But she's a survivor and she's sharing with us now what she has learned for your benefit.
Thanks for joining us.
Back soon.
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