The Fantasy Island Fiasco

CBN.com "Bill was the owner and operator of a brothel right on the city limits between Lakewood and Denver," says Lakewood Police Department Division Chief Clarene Shelley. "He had several women that were in his employ. He was obnoxious, to say the least."

That's how Shelley remembers Bill Faye the night she arrested him. Today they're friends. They even work together.

"I'm still an ex-felon," says Bill, "yet I hold more police credentials on me than most policemen ever would."

So how did a former felon like Bill wind up on the right side of the law? Bill's story began when his father's life ended.

"I watched my father die in a veteran's hospital," he says. "He lost all of his money through poor investments and my Mom barely having enough gas money to get back and forth to see him. Something snapped in me and said, 'You go around once in life. Get it.' "

In college, Bill discovered a quick way to "get it": gambling. Before long, he was doing junkets in Vegas.

Says Bill, "By the time I was 22, I was a professional card cheat. I started to rob men at the point of a deck of cards instead of a gun."

Bill's "talent" soon caught the attention of a major player.

"Hit a hot streak, got all the money, and this man not only became my friend but became my Godfather. I got deeply involved with what you know as the Mafia, the underworld, and the Syndicate. I got seriously involved in what was called 'wholesaling' mafia money around the world," Bill explains.

Meanwhile, Bill was also making a name for himself in the corporate world. He was already on his second marriage.

"I took off on my open, adulterous lifestyle, climbing the corporate ladder-achieve, achieve, achieve. Having a $5,000 bottle of wine would not have been a big deal at dinner," he says.

A decade later, Bill was at the top of his game and onto his third marriage.

"I was president and chief executive of a multi-million dollar corporation," says Bill. "I remember standing in my corporate office. I got Mafia money in one pocket; big time corporate money in the other. I have chauffeur-driven limousines, diamond rings, gold Rolexes. And I remember standing there thinking, Now what? Boy, I got rid of that thought, and then my third wife got rid of me. She left me after one year for another man. It's only the mercy of God that she's still alive because I was going to have a contract put on her and have her murdered."

Instead, Bill married a fourth time, and he started a new "business."

"I decided to build Fantasy Island, which became one of the larger houses of prostitution in this country," he says. "I started making money off of men's lives just as miserable and as empty as my own. Nothing's fulfilling me; nothing's working-I mean, how many bottles of wine can you drink? How many women can you go to bed with? How much money can you make?"

Bill never found out. His lifestyle came to a sudden halt at the same gambling table where he hit his first lucky streak.

"My attorney called and said, 'There's a warrant out for your arrest. The Lakewood Police Department decided to raid Fantasy Island.' My corporation fired me. They didn't want their chief executive called a pimp all over the United States," Bill explains.

Bill beat this rap and was put on probation. Soon he was back in business. Then he was arrested for buying stolen merchandise.

"I realize while I'm sitting in a jail cell that I violated my probation. I'm going to prison 6-12 years. I bonded out. I panicked. Tears galore. I thought of suicide. I didn't want to go to prison," he says.

Bill became so desperate that he followed his wife's advice and called the man who had married them. The next day, he drove 85 miles to church.

"I've never really heard the Gospel where it had connected. This sweet, old pastor said, 'Why don't you kneel down and just try to pray?' That's all he said to me. I'm sobbing. I'm weeping. It's leaking out of my nose. When I got up from my knees, however long it was-10 minutes or half an hour later-I knew something had happened to me. The feeling was something was clean, the weight I'd been carrying was gone. Something had happened! Within 24 hours I'm telling people that I've met Jesus Christ," Bill recalls.

And he hasn't stopped since. Bill was set free from his sins that day and later walked out of court a free man. The judge dismissed his case and barred it from further prosecution.

"For three months I can't stop crying," he remembers. "God just purged me of all my stuff. I am so hungry I can't read the Bible fast enough."

Bill went on to share his faith first with his wife Peggy and then with more than 25,000 people on a one-to-one basis over the past 20 years. He's written a guidebook called Share Jesus without Fear and he teaches in churches worldwide. Bill has been in and out of prisons many times to share the love of Christ through his testimony. He also works as a chaplain for the Colorado State Patrol and several police departments, including Chief Shelley's.

"Bill was the willing recipient of the grace that comes with conversion, accepting Christ," says Shelley. "I think that God has used him and had a plan for him all along."

"I get teary thinking about it," Bill says. "It's hard to describe the greatest thing that ever happened. I look forward to my time in the morning with Him, my quiet time. Most of all, I look forward to the privilege that He gives me in telling others about Him-that He would use the likes of me to minister to people who were as lost as I was."