Feds: Atlantic City boardwalk attack central to sex charges
Federal prosecutors say a woman kidnapped from the Atlantic City boardwalk and a 14-year-old girl were victims of a man arrested on sex trafficking charges.
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NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors say a woman kidnapped from the Atlantic City boardwalk and a 14-year-old girl were victims of a man arrested on sex trafficking charges Tuesday.
David Williams, 35, was held without bail after a brief appearance in Manhattan federal court, where his lawyer declined comment.
According to a criminal complaint, Williams ran a sex trafficking business from the Bronx, where he brought a 20-year-old woman last February after meeting her on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The complaint said Williams and a woman who worked with him as a prostitute and is listed as a co-conspirator in court papers invited the woman to smoke marijuana with them in their car.
When the 20-year-old woman grew uncomfortable and asked to leave, Williams disallowed it and forced her to go with them to the Bronx, where he raped her at gunpoint in a hotel room, the complaint said.
After forcing the kidnapping victim to work as a prostitute, Williams left the woman alone in a hotel room with a cellphone a week later and she summoned police and was taken to a hospital, the complaint said.
The complaint said the kidnapping victim during the week met a 14-year-old girl who said she was recruited two months earlier to work as a prostitute and had gone on dozens of prostitution “dates” in recent weeks. The complaint said the 14-year-old had told Williams she was 18.
In a release, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman called human trafficking a priority for his office.
“It is reprehensible that a person would forcibly force another human being into sex and seek to profit from it,” Berman said.
Charges against Williams included conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, sex trafficking by force, sex trafficking of a minor, coercion and enticement of a minor and kidnapping.
A charge of sex trafficking by force carries a potential mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life. Sex trafficking of a minor carries a potential mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life.