A Little Rock woman was freed from a Miami-based human trafficking operation last month, leading to the arrest of a man who the Miami-Dade state attorney said lured her and other women there and then abused them, according to a Thursday press release.
Miami police on Nov. 29 arrested Kyron Lajon Richardson, 29, five days after a 21-year-old Little Rock woman managed to text her father the address where she was being held and forced into prostitution, the release from State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle says.
Authorities say Richardson met the woman on social media, where he began grooming her, telling her she was “too beautiful to be in Little Rock” and should join him in Miami, the release says.
Richardson allegedly offered to let the woman “join his lifestyle” and paid for a one-way plane ticket to Miami without explaining what she would be doing, the release continues.
Once there, the victim met three other women that apparently lived with Richardson, the release says. Eventually, she began working as a prostitute and exotic dancer under the threat of angering Richardson, it says. It says the victim said she saw him physically abuse the other woman and knew he owned a rifle. All the money from the sex work went to Richardson, the release says.
“Every human trafficking arrest involves the daily sexual exploitation of victims, often young victims, with the sole goal of putting cash in the trafficker’s pockets,” Fernandez Rundle wrote in the release.
When police arrested Richardson following the victim’s Thanksgiving Day text to her father, they reported finding a rifle, a handgun and $18,000 cash on his person and in the residence.
He is charged with two counts of human trafficking and one count each of unlawful use of a communications device and deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution. All the charges are felonies.
“The raw merchandizing of people’s lives will not be tolerated in this community,” Fernandez Rundle wrote. “I am proud of the hard work done by my Human Trafficking Task Force to eliminate this problem.”