Horrific Human Trafficking Case Unfolding in Detroit

DETROIT, MI — The FBI got a tip from local police Thursday that led them to a southwest Detroit home where two teenagers and three suburban women had been held in locked rooms, drugged, forced into prostitution and, if they didn’t perform well, according to a case unfolding in U.S. District Court.

Richard Jackson, 67, was charged with multiple felonies related to a sex ring after the raid on his home on South Electric Street. Three adult women, two of them 21, the third 31 and all from the Downriver area, were rescued, but the two teens — one 14 and the other thought to be between 12-15 years — are missing after one of the victims helped them escape through a bathroom window, according to media reports.

Detroit police responded to the house on South Electric about 1 p.m.Thursday after getting a 911 call that someone inside had been hit. While there, they talked to a woman who said she was being held against her will and had been forced into prostitution, according to the police report.

“My sister’s in the basement. You’ve got to get to her. He’s going to kill her,” the woman told police, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press.

It’s unclear how long women have been held in the home. A neighbor told WDIV-TV that Jackson showed up at the house earlier this year, but it wasn’t known if he was a squatter or owned it. Neighbors told the TV station it was clear the women were working as prostitutes, but they didn’t know they were being held against their will. They also said they had never seen the teenagers.

The federal complaint paints a horrifying picture of what the endured, both inside the upstairs room secured with a large padlock and steel gate and outside, where they were forced to “walk the tracks” as prostitutes at Michigan and Livernois avenues.

According to an FBI agent’s affidavit, one of the women said she had known Jackson for several years, but about two months ago, he forced her to stay at the house where there were “always other girls.”

“Jackson and his associates would get the girls hooked on drugs in order to keep them at the house. They often gave them heroin just long enough to have them addicted. Once (they were) addicted, Jackson and his associates began making the girls do commercial sex dates and move drugs for them,” the affidavit states.

The sex dates, which the FBI said were advertised on Backpage.com, sometimes took place at the house on South Electric, but at other times Jackson and a friend would drive the girls and women to different locations so they could keep an eye on them, according to the affidavit.

Also alleged in the affidavit: Prices varied, but Jackson always kept the money; he acted as a “house monitor” and was given to violent outbursts, including one that sent a woman to the hospital with a broken when she said she didn’t want to go on a sex date. When she returned, he broke the other arm, according to the complaint.

The FBI is looking for the two teenagers. One of the adult victims told authorities she was worried about the girls’ safety after seeing Jackson hit one of them. Information about the girls’ whereabouts, or about the sex trafficking ring, is asked to call the FBI at (313) 965-2323.

Photo via Shutterstock