Maynard “Joe” Richards, who left his mark in Nye County’s brothel industry and as a newspaper owner, died in early July.
Richards, 87, died after suffering a heart attack on Thursday, July 1, according to a close friend.
During his decades in Nye County, Richards, originally from Duluth, Minnesota, owned brothels as well as taking over the helm of the The Mirror publication from 1992 to 2014.
Under his ownership, Richards wrote the weekly and popular “On Target: from the Kingdom of Nye” column.
Pahrump resident and former madam Heidi Fleiss knew Richards for close to 20 years and considered him a pioneer in Pahrump and throughout Nye County.
She told the Pahrump Valley Times that Richards was known as a “rabble-rouser.”
“He is part of this whole community,” she said. “What a troublemaker he was, when he put the Gentleman’s Kingdom strip club up at Homestead and Highway 160, just to piss everyone off. He tricked people and told them that it was going to be a country music place.”
Richards also had his fair share of run-ins with the law. Back in 2009, he was sentenced to spend a year in a Las Vegas halfway house and served five years on probation for attempting to bribe a Nye County commissioner, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal article, which also stated that Richards was fined $250,000 by U.S. District Judge Robert Jones in Las Vegas.
Fleiss also spoke about Richards’ love for her bird sanctuary.
“How could I not love Joe,” she said. “His screensaver on his iPhone is one of my birds. Any donations people want to make in his name, they can send it to my sanctuary at Macaw Rescue Inc., which is a 501(c)(3) tax deductible sanctuary. Joe would have really appreciated that.”
Additionally, Fleiss said Richards was in great physical and mental shape up to his death.
“His mind was sharp, he was 100 percent lucid, and because of that, no one was going to get over on Joe,” Fleiss said. “The truth is we’re just not meant to live forever, no matter how perfect your diet is. I’m really going to miss that guy.”
Fleiss also noted that she last saw Richards roughly two weeks ago.
“He would come by once a month and bring me Whole Foods,” she said. “He came over and helped unload my groceries. We got along great because we both ate healthy, organic foods and that really was the core of our relationship. We always shared recipes and all that. None of us are going to live forever. I will really miss sharing our recipes and talking to him.”
No public services for Richards are planned at this time, according to Palm Eastern Mortuary and Cemetery. People can leave a message for the family at https://bit.ly/3e7JydN on his obituary through Palm Mortuary.
Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @pvtimes