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By Andre L. Taylor | Staff Writer
A few days after Christmas, Montgomery County Police Detective Tom Stack stood outside room 247 of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rockville. He was searching for a man police thought was operating a prostitution ring.
According to court records, Stack heard a woman crying inside, followed by a audible smack. He and his fellow officers knocked. When a man inside opened the door, the officers saw a woman with a scrape above her eye and a cut on her cheek. The woman scurried into the bathroom as the officers handcuffed the man they had been looking for — Jeremy Naughton, 29, of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Montgomery County has no known red light district, so the seven officers of the county's vice intelligence squad spend 40 hours per week looking for sex traffickers on the Internet.
Naughton was charged with prostitution and released on $5,000 bail Dec. 30. The 22-year-old Connecticut woman who was with him also was arrested, but was not charged. Prosecutors and police often do not charge alleged prostitutes because they might have been forced or coerced to perform sexual acts.
"She was getting beat, but she didn't want to talk," Stack said of the woman. "There's such a strong bond between pimps and prostitutes."
Naughton was arrested again Feb. 16 in Prince George's County on different charges. He was charged with two counts of running a prostitution business and a count of prostitution, according to court records.
After their pimps are arrested, prostitutes often are left to fend for themselves. Some turn to a nonprofit rehabilitation program called You Are Never Alone in Baltimore.
Started in 1996, the program offers counseling and gives women a safe place to get a good meal and wash their clothes, Executive Director Sidney Ford said. The program operates a drop-in center in Baltimore and helps 40 to 60 women per week, often repeat visitors.
Each year, six to 10 of the women YANA helps come from Montgomery County, placed in the program by the Maryland Human Trafficking Taskforce.
"Women or anyone exploited can come tell their story here," Ford said. "Usually, people don't talk for a lot of reasons. One reason is they're mortified and ashamed of what has happened to them."
Federal intervention
Lloyd Mack Royal III, will learn his fate April 29 when he is sentenced, but it won't be in District Court. Royal, 29, of Gaithersburg, was convicted by a federal jury March 24 of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, sex trafficking of a minor, sex trafficking by force and possession of a firearm, according to court records.
"We're trying to deter the pimps here on the federal level," said Rod Rosenstein, U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland. "A lot of people, like Royal, don't take law enforcement seriously."
Royal, also known as by "Blyss," "B" and "Furious," could spend the rest of his life in prison. He faces 10-years to life for sex trafficking of a minor, 15 years to life for sex trafficking by force and five years for possession of a firearm, according to court records.
Harry Trainor, Royal's lawyer, said he and his client will consider their options after sentencing.
Getting a local prostitution case to the federal level takes solid evidence and strong witnesses, Rosenstein said. It also takes relationship building between local police departments and federal prosecutors. The two sides share a common goal: Eliminating prostitution.
"Typically prostitutes are victims," Rosenstein said. "A lot of these girls come from broken homes and pimps prey on that aspect and force them into prostitution by playing on their self esteem."
For more than a month before he was arrested in May 2007, Royal gave alcohol and drugs to young girls to get them to have sex for money, according to court records. Witnesses testified during Royal's trial that he beat the girls and even pulled a gun on one of them if they didn't follow his orders to have sex with paying customers.
Witnesses also testified Royal drove the prostitutes from Maryland to Washington, D.C. to have sex with customers.
One co-defendant, Paul Raymond Green, 24, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, said Marcia Murphy, spokeswoman for the office of the U.S. attorney for the District. Green will be placed on three years of supervised release when his prison term ends.
The second co-defendant, Angela Bentolila, 27, of Potomac, will be sentenced April 23, Murphy said.
Help stop human trafficking/prostitution
To report a suspected case of human trafficking in Maryland, call the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center at 800-492-8477 or the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888.
For help getting out of prostitution, call You Are Never Alone in Baltimore at 410-566-7973.Part 1, published April 14, described how human trafficking and prostitution on the Internet have become common in Montgomery County, and how police and lawmakers are combating these crimes head on. To read Part 1, go to www.gazette.net.
Sex traffickers face multiple charges
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