Suspect held in sex trafficking investigation

EVERETT — The woman told police she just wanted to go home to California.

Instead, she said, her pimp forced her to stay and work in Everett.

The suspect was arrested in the 1400 block of Everett Mall Way for investigation of sex trafficking Sunday after police received a report of a woman being assaulted.

The woman, 20, told police that she was hit several times while in a car at a parking lot after telling her pimp she didn’t want to work as a prostitute on Evergreen Way.

She said the man, 25, became angry and began punching her. She told police that she tried to escape from the passenger door, but the suspect grabbed her and sped up. Later, she said, the man shoved her out of the car, which she estimated was moving up to 20 mph.

The woman reported pain in her hip and legs from falling out of the car. She was also sore in her arm and shoulders from the punches.

She “started to take off her coat to look and then said that she had a lot of bruises from prior assaults by (the suspect) and she wouldn’t be able to tell what was from this assault,” police wrote in a report.

The woman said that she first met the man in San Bernardino, Calif., and worked for him as a prostitute in several cities in that state.

He reportedly brought her to Washington on a Greyhound bus to buy a car. He allegedly told her they would return to California after buying the car, a 1995 black BMW.

After purchasing the car, the suspect told her that she would have to work as a prostitute in Washington, court papers said. He also reportedly enrolled at a local community college.

Police said the man had $740 in cash when he was arrested.

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446; stevick@heraldnet.com.

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