KIRKLAND, Wash. — Police arrested two people and shut down a prostitution ring operating in a Kirkland house.
Last Wednesday a woman told police she had been held against her will in a house near Kingsgate until she was able to escape and got a neighbor to call 911.
Kirkland police say the woman was lured from Alabama to Kirkland with the promise she'd be paid to make adult videos for social media.
Detectives say the suspects, Kevin Falcon and Lateria Gillians, sent her a one-way ticket to Sea-Tac. When the pair picked her up at the airport, they spent the night at a home in Olympia, then she was taken to a home in Kirkland. The house is located across the street from Helen Keller Elementary School.
"She was coming from Alabama to participate in web cam videos, adult film modeling and other films or videos that would be loaded up to social media sites, with sexual contact. That's what she believed she was coming up here for," Corporal Cody Mann of Kirkland Police Department said.
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Within a couple of days, the victim quickly figured out what was happening in the house. She told police she didn't want to be a prostitute and felt threatened by Kevin Falcon, who operated the prostitution ring, and told her how to collect money or "donations" from customers in exchange for sex acts.
"She escaped from the house. She felt she was being held against her will, she wasn't free to leave," Corporal Mann said.
Police arrested Kevin Falcon, 26, and Lateria Gillians, 25, for promoting prostitution. Prosecutors charged both suspects on Tuesday afternoon with promoting prostitution.
Police talked to another woman who was staying in the house who says she felt pressured by the suspects to work as a prostitute as well. Investigators think the suspects might have recruited prostitutes to work at other houses. They believe there are more victims. "We definitely think there were, we don't know who those people are at this time, we may never know," Corporal Mann said.
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