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Victim in Trafficking Case Details Ex-wrestler's Control over Women

Strung out on drugs and reeling from the death of her daughter, Lexi thought she had hit rock bottom in that Cobb County, Georgia extended-stay hotel.

Then came the muscle-bound man in the black SUV. Former pro wrestler Harrison 'Hardbody' Norris Jr., shown giving his own opening argument, lured women by promising to turn them into wrestlers, but testimony by one of the women, 'Lexi,' illustrated how it was really a sex trafficking ring.
 
He pulled up to Lexi as night fell on a gas station parking lot off Windy Hill Road in June 2005. He introduced himself as "Hardbody" and asked Lexi whether she had ever considered a job in professional wrestling. She was flattered.

The guy seemed legit. He pulled out fliers from his training facility: the Southstar Championship Wrestling Alliance. And the eight women inside his GMC Denali said they were wrestling understudies, too. No matter that they were wearing mini-skirts and stiletto heels.

"Being on the streets, you get tired," she would say later. "This seemed like something positive in my life." Lexi disappeared into the SUV with the "HARDBDY" license plate and hoped it would take her to something better.

Instead, a federal jury ruled last week, 30-year-old Lexi had entered a sex trafficking ring run by Harrison "Hardbody" Norris Jr. The former pro wrestler was found guilty of peonage, forced labor, aggravated sexual abuse and sex trafficking involving Lexi and four other victims. In essence, he turned them into sex slaves at his two Cartersville homes. Jurors also found Norris, 41, guilty of conspiracy charges involving three other women.

Norris, who will be sentenced Feb. 28, faces life in prison under a 2000 law that has made it easier to punish those who force people into labor. No longer do prosecutors need shackles to prove a case. The anti-human-trafficking law recognizes that tools of imprisonment can be financial, psychological and physical. In a 2 1/2-week trial, the government painted Norris as a master of all three.

The testimony from "Lexi" — the name given to her in Norris' home — helped build that case. (Her real name is being withheld because she is the victim of a sex crime.) She declined to talk outside the courtroom, leaving some questions about her life unanswered.

The following account is taken from Lexi's day on the witness stand. Norris, who represented himself at trial, argued that the women had plenty of chances to leave. In cross-examining Lexi, he asked why she never cried out for help to people she encountered: doctors in the hospital, authorities in jail or security guards at nightclubs.

But jurors sided with Lexi. In sometimes graphic detail, she explained how she felt trapped in his web for nearly three months. Then one morning, with the help of a razor blade, she cut her way free. For Norris, that was the beginning of the end.

The night Lexi hopped into the Denali, she and the other girls hit Latino clubs around metro Atlanta. Men would pay them $5 for a dance. Lexi didn't think much of it when the women handed the money to Norris.

Just before daybreak, the group arrived at side-by-side homes along a suburban street in Cartersville, 40 miles northwest of Atlanta. "I'd been up for I don't know how long," Lexi told jurors from the witness stand, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. "I was exhausted."

Her grueling initiation was just beginning. Lexi had one week to master seven lists. Some were expectations to memorize. Others were duties to practice. They had names like "Hardbody's 10 Commandments" and "The Hallway of Pain."

Norris, a former Army sergeant and Gulf War veteran, ran the homes with military-like precision. He slept in the "General's Quarters." Norris told Lexi she was a "soldier" and pinned a stripe on her chest. She would be assigned a "team leader" named "Athena" whose real name was Aimee Allen, whom prosecutors called an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Norris.

"We were never allowed to be alone," Lexi said. There was even a sign-in sheet for the bathroom. Norris, a 2001 national Toughman champion, put them on a strict diet. A typical dinner was three hard-boiled eggs, grapefruit juice and wheat toast.

Resisting Norris' orders didn't seem to be an option, Lexi said, something he made clear in one of her first sessions in the gym Norris built out back. Lexi, an asthmatic, had forgotten her inhaler. She was wheezing in the ring. Norris said she could retrieve it, but at a cost: Her entire team would be fined. So Lexi pressed on without it and nearly collapsed.

She sensed a strong bond forming with her teammates. "It felt like I was actually starting to belong somewhere." The training regimen grew more oppressive as the week wore on, however, particularly the session called "HB Training." "You think it's going to be something in the ring," she said. "But it wasn't. It was sex with [Norris]."

It wouldn't be the last time she had sex at Norris' request. Less than two weeks into her stay, he drove Lexi to a home in Rabun County for the last duty on her list: CPT, which meant "cut party training." "Cut parties" were forced orgies.

"I told him I really didn't feel comfortable doing anything like that," said Lexi, who had never been a prostitute. Norris, the man providing a roof over her head, somehow made her feel guilty. "He asked me was I 'in' or not?"

The pressure was compounded by the knowledge that her teammates would be fined if she refused. Lexi didn't want to let them down. She went into the living room, where three men were sitting on a couch. As Norris and other women watched, Lexi had sex with all three.

Soon after, she found out what really was expected at those Latino clubs.

The women would leave the Cartersville homes wearing long coats over their skimpy outfits. Norris' wife, after all, lived there with their daughter, the youngest of his three children. At the clubs, the women didn't always stop at a $5 dance. An additional $200 would buy one hour of sex in a car or a nearby hotel.

At the end of each night, Norris would divide up the money. Half went to him. Much of the rest went into envelopes labeled for various expenses, from rent to manicures. And if any of the women broke a rule, she'd have to pay a fine into a piggy bank labeled with the transgression. One was called "Talks Too Much."

When Norris bought Lexi's anti-seizure medication — she had diabetes — he added it to her bill. Lexi was working as a prostitute but falling into debt. By day, she learned wrestling moves and enjoyed announcing the matches. But there was nothing "pro" about this wrestling. Norris' friends and neighbors would watch. Nobody ever paid.

The real money rolled in when Norris would put on a leather trench coat filled with condoms and get behind the wheel of the Denali. Sometimes he'd take the women to other states. One trip, to a North Carolina casino, ended in disaster. The police pulled Norris over on suspicion of drunken driving. He was sober, but an ID check revealed Lexi had an outstanding warrant for a probation violation. She went to jail.

Norris told her to keep an eye out for recruits, "girls who didn't have anywhere to go." Lexi was surrounded by authorities but never thought of reporting Norris. She owed him money. "And I just thought it would make things worse for me," she said. "I'll be honest, there was never a time when the law worked for me."

That was about to change.

Lexi had grown close to "Sierra," another new member of the group. They'd chat for hours in the back of the Denali. Eventually, they realized they shared a goal: to escape Norris' control. While visiting a Michigan casino, Norris denied Sierra's request to see her sister. Lexi protested, and Norris flew into a rage. "He threatened to put me through the wall of the hotel."

Lexi believed him. She had heard Norris beat one of the other women. That night Norris didn't let Lexi have dinner. She suffered a diabetic seizure and ended up in the hospital. The time had come, she thought, to leave.

Lexi informed Norris of her decision. He tried to talk her out of it and reminded Lexi that she still owed him for medication. They agreed that one last trick would be enough to pay Norris back and buy a Greyhound ticket home, provided she also completed her chores. Lexi's teammates chipped in, helping her finish the list.

Lexi prostituted herself and asked Norris for bus fare. But he remembered a Western-style brothel portrait he had made with Lexi and the other girls. Now, if she left, it would be useless. She couldn't leave without paying him for that, too.

The next morning, Lexi's roommate — a "team leader" who was supposed to keep an eye on her — dozed off. Norris was in a bedroom down the hall, so walking out would be too risky. Lexi entered the bathroom and pretended to take a shower. With the water running, she pulled out a bladed tool used to scrape dead skin off her feet. She cut through the window screen, climbed up on the vanity and escaped — feet first.

Lexi tapped on Sierra's window, but there was no answer. She'd have to come back.

She ran to a nearby shop, where she asked a worker to call the police. Then she called Sierra's cellphone and begged her to make a run for it. The police were coming, it would be OK. "[Sierra] thanked me. She was afraid that I had left her."

Police arrested Norris and realized this was no ordinary prostitution ring. He had false imprisonment charges pending. A year earlier, three women shopping in Smyrna had dashed out of a store to a passing policeman. They said Norris was holding them against their will.

Now federal investigators took over and raided his Cartersville homes. During Norris' trial, prosecutors displayed one of the seized items. Lexi identified it as the chore list. Dozens of duties were beneath each woman's name.

A prosecutor asked Lexi to read the word scribbled across the bottom of the column with her name.

Lexi glanced at Norris, dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit. Then she smiled and answered:

"Gone."

Adapted from: BRIAN FEAGANS, Victim in trafficking case details ex-wrestler's control over women."  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 25 November 2007.