The mother commits multiple felonies every week and you wonder whether that will hurt her chances of regaining custody?  Be serious.  Even if she didn't charge money and just had a really active sex drive, her level of activity would hurt her chances.

Even if the judge IS a hobbyist he won't overlook what she does for a living.  What do you expect him to do?  Say in court that he sees working girls himself now and then and doesn't consider it a big deal?  And even if he doesn't actually admit to it, ignoring this aspect of the mother's life would get him reversed on appeal.

Since the ex must know what she's doing it's a safe bet that the court will find out.  Unless the ex has some real problems of his own which make letting him raise the girl seem even worse than letting the mother do it, I don't think she has much of a chance.

What she needs to do is consult with a family law attorney.  This board can only help so much, and she needs guidance beyond what she can get here.

Although providing is not a felony, I agree with sidone's assessment.  Custody has already been established with one parent so it would be difficult for anyone to gain full custody, unless of course the custodial parent is convicted of crimes, has a documented drug/alcohol problem, or beats the child.  The best shot is probably jont custody, but the standard is best interests of the child.  If mom is a provider, there's little chance for her unless she stops providing, gets a "normal" job, and stays away from providing.  If dad knows about her providing, it will come out in discovery, and even if he doesn't know, it still could come out because mom will have to account for her income.  Her financial records are fair game, so if she uses a bank, there will be a trail of unaccounted for cash deposits.  Even if she doesn't use a bank, she will have to provide an adequate explaination of how she pays her bills.  Whether the judge hobbies is irrelevant, and he may even go down on her harder if he does to mask his tracks.  If she is serious about custody, she should get a "normal" job, file for visitation for now, and try for custody an maybe a year.  Doing it now risks a lot of potential embarrassment for her and may create a record that will hurt her chances in the future.  As an aside, when dad first gained custody, it was established that giving dad custody was in the best interests of the child.  If providing didn't come up, I suspect other possible criminal activity on mom's part, or a drug/alcohol problem did or mom probably would have been granted joint custody.  Whatever the factors were at the time, mom will need to show she has corrected them.

i made a mistake she is just trying to get visitation rights

Lawtalkinguy is right and I goofed.  Prostitution is not a felony.  He and I seem to agree about the rest, though I think he chose his words poorly when he said the judge might "go down on her harder" if he's a hobbyist.  Or not.  It depends what he was trying to say.

On the brink's new information that the lady is just trying to get visitation rights means that her problem is more serious than I had thought.  If the court denied her visitation the first time around it must believe she is a serious risk to the girl's welfare.  I'm not sure what she can do to change the judge's mind, and I would need to know a lot more details before I could even suggest something.

I understand wannarideher's comment, but it seems that the court already knows mom is a provider.  Why else would it have denied visitation?  If it didn't know she escorts and had some other basis for denying visitation then she has multiple problems and needs to consult a family law specialist to see what can be done, if anything.