Woman, 18, says she was held by prostitution ring
DES MOINES — An 18-year-old Iowa woman told police that a group of people sold her and "at least 10 other girls" for sex in Des Moines, according to a police report.
The woman called Des Moines police Saturday after she escaped from the people who she said had been prostituting her since June 24, according to the report. The pimps threatened to beat her if she left, she told police.
The woman told police she was from Dubuque, Iowa, and got a ride from a friend to Des Moines on June 23 so she could help another friend with her soon-to-be-born baby, according to the report. The man dropped her off and asked her to pay him for driving her to Des Moines, which is 201 miles southwest of Dubuque. The woman didn't have money, so the man took her clothes, purse, cellphone and hygiene items and drove away, she told police.
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The woman borrowed a stranger's cellphone and used Facebook to try to contact the pregnant friend she had intended to visit, according to the report.
The friend didn't respond, but some of the prostitution suspects' friends did, and soon two men in their 20s picked up the woman from where she had been left, according to the report.
"They talked to her about 'working' for them by providing sex acts to customers," police wrote in their report.
"Initially (the victim) consented to 'working' for (the suspects) because of her desperate state," police wrote. "(The victim) wanted to make enough money to get back home in Dubuque."
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The woman told police she was prostituted from June 24 until she escaped Saturday, and she estimated she had sex with at least 30 men as arranged by the pimps, according to the report. The price was $100 for 15 minutes, $150 for 30 minutes and $200 for an hour, according to the report.
The woman was not allowed to keep any money, as originally promised, because the pimps told her "that she didn't need any money because they would take care of her needs — food, shelter, marijuana and cocaine, protection, showers/hygiene, etc.," according to the report.
The pimps threatened the woman that if she was "disloyal," she would be beaten like another woman had been, according to the report. The woman told police she estimated "at least 10 other girls" were also pimped by these people, according to the report. The pimps sold her with ads on the Internet, she told police.
The woman "was not afforded any freedom to use her cellphone independently, or Facebook, or to even leave the sight of her pimps," according to the police report. She also told police some of the pimps would listen at the door when she went to the bathroom, to make sure she wasn't talking to anyone, according to the report.
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The woman told police she feared she would be beaten or killed if she left, but on Saturday she left the house while one of the pimps was sleeping, according to the report.
The case remains under investigation and was labeled as a human trafficking investigation in the police report.
A Des Moines Police Department spokesman said Monday that no further information about the investigation was immediately available.
The names of the suspects, as well as that of the victim, were redacted from the police report.
Follow Charly Haley on Twitter: @charlyhaley