NJ man forced women into NYC-based sex trafficking ring with death threats, violence: prosecutors
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A New Jersey man forced more than five women into a New York City-based sex trafficking ring — and threatened to kill them if they reported him to police, prosecutors say.
Akil Martin, 28, of Elizabeth, was arrested and charged with three counts of sex trafficking and one count of promoting prostitution in the third degree on Thursday, the Manhattan District Attorney's office said in a press release.
Prosecutors say Martin used social media to recruit more than five young women into his operation, driving them to hotels throughout New York City to perform "sexual services" under "threat of physical violence."
Martin not only required the women to adhere to "a strict set of rules" and give him the money they made, but also held onto their ID documents "to coerce them to engage in prostitution and prevent them from leaving," the DA's office said.
Martin, who took more than $50,000 from the women between Feb. 2019 and this past February, "would coerce, intimidate and physically abuse" them if they refused to work, "including subjecting them to repeated beatings and other acts of violence," prosecutors said.
On several occasions, he pulled out guns and threatened to kill the women if they reported him to police, the DA's office said. This past January, one of the women reported a text message Martin sent her — in which he threatened to shoot her to death — to the NYPD, according to the DA's office.
"As alleged in this indictment, Mr. Martin has spent the last two years using social media, death threats, beatings and guns to recruit, transport and coercively prostitute five young women who lived in constant and very real fear for their lives," District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement.
"The recruitment, coercion and forced prostitution of survivors under threat of physical violence are hallmarks of the disturbing reality of sex trafficking in New York City," he added.
Martin's attorney information wasn't immediately available Thursday.
