LITTLE ROCK — A federal criminal complaint obtained Friday describes a Little Rock man known as “Vegas” as a pimp who forced at least two women, ages 20 and 27, to have sex with men who responded to Internet advertisements and then turn the proceeds over to him.
According to reports, one of the women said that Vegas choked her and threatened to kill her when she tried to get away from him.
The complaint was filed Dec. 21 by an FBI agent in support of the arrest of Jermaine Lamon Roy, aka Vegas, who was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Little Rock on a charge of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion.
A second indictment accuses three people, whose names were mentioned in the criminal complaint against Roy, of a sex-trafficking conspiracy involving a minor.
The three are Nodia Minyette Green, Arieal Jarelle Bishop and David Jayvell Golson, whose ages and addresses were unavailable.
According to the sworn statement of Agent Lazar Pierre Jr., he interviewed a 17-year-old girl at the Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Facility on Dec. 3, and she told him that Vegas had rented a hotel room she used for prostitution purposes.
The girl told the agent that Roy told her he wanted to be her “pimp” and that he posted an ad for her services on the website Backpage.com, then told her that she owed him half the money she made as a result. She said that she refused to let him be her pimp or to pay him.
The agent’s statement also describes two undercover investigations conducted by vice officers with the Little Rock Police Department - one at the Comfort Suites Hotel at 11 Crossings Court in Little Rock and the other at the Extended Stay Hotel at 600 Hardin Drive.
The undercover investigations were prompted by advertisements for “escorts” on Backpage.com, according to the statement.
In the Comfort Suites investigation, according to the complaint, a male detective called a number listed in the website ad and arranged for a date with “Angel,” who turned out to be a 20-year-old woman. She arrived at the motel room and gave the officer a “massage” while both were nude, the affidavit states. During the massage, the affidavit states, the woman “made sexual contact” with the detective, who “immediately moved away” from her and asked if they could have sex.
The complaint states that the woman agreed. When she went to get a condom, the detective “gave the signal” for other vice officers to enter the room and arrest her.
During her interview with police, the woman said she was being “actively pimped” by a man named Vegas, and identified a photograph of Roy as that man, according to the complaint.
The woman reportedly told police that she was from Birmingham, Ala., and had met Vegas two months earlier while staying with a friend in Little Rock. She said he eventually persuaded her to fly back to Little Rock, at his expense, and work for him as a prostitute.
The woman told authorities that she later tried to go back to Birmingham to get away from Vegas, but he scared her into believing he would “find her and take care of her” if she didn’t return. She also said she was “subjected to frequent beatings by Vegas if she did not do what he wanted her to or if he got mad about something.”
Another undercover officer arranged a date on Nov. 20 at the Extended Stay Hotel with a woman advertised on Backpage.com as “Princess,” the FBI agent’s affidavit states. The woman was preparing to have sex with the officer when he alerted other vice officers, who entered the room and arrested her, according to the statement.
The woman, 27, told police that Roy was her pimp. During her interview with police, she began receiving text messages from him and arranged for him to come to the hotel to retrieve the money she told him she had just made, at which point detectives arrested him, the statement says.
The woman had earlier obtained an order of protection against Roy in connection with an assault in June, the affidavit states.
She reportedly told officers that Roy forced her into prostitution, telling her “he was her daddy now and that he runs her and she had to do what he said” or he would beat her.
Roy then started posting ads for the woman on the website and kept all the proceeds for himself, the woman reported.
She said that Roy choked her and threatened to kill her when he found a text message from her ex-boyfriend offering to help her get away from him.
The woman also reported that her grandmother, sister and aunt had all tried to “rescue her” from Roy, but that he threatened to kill them.
According to the court document, the woman had visible bruises on her face and arms, and told police that Roy beat her every other day.
Once arrested, Roy denied being the woman’s pimp, but admitted he had rented the hotel room, the affidavit states. It said the woman’s sister also described, during a telephone interview, receiving calls for help three or four times a week from the woman, who was always crying and trying to get away from Roy.
On one occasion, the woman’s grandmother went to a Motel 6 off West Markham Street to rescue her from Roy. At the time, the woman was in the room talking on the phone to her sister, who later told officers that she could hear Roy threatening to kill the grandmother, according to reports.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 01/12/2013