Sex Trafficking2010
United States US
Marquin Thompson pleaded guilty in January to forcing a then 19-year-old woman into prostitution after the woman had become estranged from her family, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office media release. She has since been reunited with her family. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour imposed the sentence. Thompson also took the woman to Arizona and California where he forced her to work as a prostitute. According to records filed in the case, between September 2007 and January 2008, Thompson forced the woman to work for him as a prostitute along Pacific Highway South. He controlled the woman with threats of violence. She was expected to make hundreds of dollars each day and required to turn over all of her earnings to Thompson.
Sex Trafficking2007
United States US
The man's arrest was part of an ongoing effort of Everett police to combat prostitution. One officer was quoted, "We're attacking it from all angles - from the johns to the prostitutes to the pimps." Undercover officers had set up several sting operations to arrest people selling and buying sex. They've also used Craigslist to nab customers and prostitutes. The man arrested came to the detectives attention in March after a woman reported seeing her daughter's picture in Craigslist and an advertisement that indicated that she was selling sex. The mother said her daughter was being "pimped out and tht the man assaulted her daughter and refused to let her visit with her family according to the search warrant. In July the police heard from another concerned mother who told them that her daughter was being held against her will in a south Everett apartment. Detectives found the woman, who told them the Everett man bought her for $250 and she worked for him as a prostitute at a Lynwood motel. She told them she gave the man all the money she made. Both women told police they were afraid of the man, who carried a pistol and beat and assaulted them. Everett police last month searched two apartments and seized computers, drug paraphenalia and about $2,000 in cash. They continue to investigate.
Sex Trafficking2008
United States US
Jerome Todd of Everett, Washington, is arrest and sentenced to 26 years in prison for pimping. The federal judge ordered Todd to pay nearly $70,000 to 3 women who worked for him as prostitutes. A jury in May had convicted Todd, 29, of numerous federal sex-for-sale crimes, including sex trafficking. Jurors were convinced Todd forced women to sell their bodies as part of an Internet-based prostitution ring.