Florida man charged in underage brothel case waives hearing
A Florida man charged with running a prostitution ring using underage Chinese girls at a string of massage parlors in Florida, Massachusetts, Virginia and Western Pennsylvania waived a federal detention hearing Tuesday and will remain locked up for now.
David Clayton Williams, 41, was indicted under seal on Aug. 9 in Pensacola, Fla., on numerous counts related to human trafficking and money laundering. The case was unsealed last week.
The FBI said he ran Asian massage parlors that were fronts for prostituting young girls who lived at the facilities.
In addition to his many Florida and Virginia locations, the FBI said he also controlled parlors in Carnegie, Turtle Creek, Jeannette, Bridgeville and Erie.
Pittsburgh FBI agents, along with state police and attorney general’s agents, raided the businesses Thursday.
In an affidavit, the FBI said
Mr. Williams was the target of parallel investigations by agents in Florida and Pittsburgh.
The investigation here began as early as 2016 when a task force officer attached to the FBI made a prostitution arrest at Thai Massage on Main Street in Carnegie after he said he was offered sex for money. The FBI said a search of the business revealed that Asian women were living in the same rooms where they were working. Police found luggage and large amounts of cash in the closets.
The FBI said the business and others in Western Pennsylvania were associated with Mr.
Williams and another person whose name is redacted from the affidavit.
Agents in Florida said Mr. Williams used “nominees” to conceal his ownership of his parlors and corresponding bank accounts.
Agents also said records recovered from Backpage. com showed that Mr. Williams used the website to advertise his parlors using sexually suggestive language and spent more than $ 63,000 for 6,827 ads. The ads promised such services as “getting your kinks rubbed out by an Asian hottie” and similar descriptions.
Agents in Florida said more than 100 women from China have been identified in the investigation as having connections to Mr. Williams’ parlors.
Many of them arrived in New York from China, agents said, with a concentration of them in Flushing, N. Y., known as a hotbed for illegal aliens arriving in the U. S. to work as prostitutes across the country.