Dennis Hof

Nevada brothel owner and Assembly candidate Dennis Hof, a larger-than-life personality who was unapologetic about selling sex even amid rising criticism of the industry and who proclaimed himself the “Trump of Pahrump” as his political star ascended this year, has died just two days after his 72nd birthday. Just hours earlier, Hof celebrated his birthday along with longtime friend and pornographic actor Ron Jeremy, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. His campaign consultant, Chuck Muth, tweeted that Jeremy found him Tuesday morning when he tried to wake Hof up to attend a lunch at the Pahrump Senior Center. Hof’s name will still remain on the ballot for the November election. Nevada law specifies that candidates who die after the fourth Friday in July will still appear there, but the county clerk must post a notice that the candidate is deceased at every polling place. He bought the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in 1992 with dreams of making it better than the Mustang Ranch owned by the notorious Joe Conforte, who fled to Brazil to avoid prison time for tax evasion in the early 1990s. He fixed up the business, tried to coach the working girls on negotiating their own prices rather than setting a fixed rate, and rebranded the place “Dennis Hof’s World Famous Moonlite BunnyRanch.” His interests turned more political in recent years, culminating with a failed run as a Libertarian against Pahrump-area Assemblyman James Oscarson in 2016. Defeated, Hof changed his party registration and defeated Oscarson by 6.3 points in a GOP primary upset in June to represent the rural Assembly district. George Flint, a longtime lobbyist for Nevada’s brothel industry, said Hof told him roughly a decade ago that he had listed one of his madames’ names on the licenses so that if anything happened to him, it wouldn’t interrupt the businesses. Flint, however, could not recall her name.