Description
The money-making plans of an accused Memphis pimp known as 'Grape Terry' were stomped by a New Orleans sex trafficking task force, according to court documents detailing the man's arrest.
Terry Gilliam, a 31-year-old Tennessean also known as "Blaine" was booked Thursday (April 6) with one count of human trafficking after authorities said he was caught using a 19-year-old woman to earn him money through prostitution dates he helped facilitate at the Econolodge motel at 4940 Chef Menteur Highway in Gentilly Woods.
According to arrest documents, a multi-agency trafficking task force that included agents from the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Marshal's Service and Louisiana State Police discovered Gilliam's activities in January, while attempting to find and rescue a juvenile girl believed to have been forced into prostitution in the New Orleans area using online advertisements on the website Backpage.com.
During their search for the juvenile runaway, the agents said they came across a series of advertisements for other women offering thinly-veiled sex worker services on the website, which authorities often have cited as a haven for escort postings.
The documents said open-source searches associated with a phone number on the advertisements led them to the identity of a 19-year-old advertising as "Sparkle," and to Facebook pages for her and Gilliam showing some of the same photos used on her ads. In one post on the woman's Facebook page, she calls herself "GrapeTerry' lil baby," the report said.
The task force set up a sting operation that led to the woman's detention after she welcomed an undercover agent into her hotel room for a prearranged "date." After being detained, the woman gave a statement to the agents admitting she had been working as a prostitute under Gilliam's direction for nine months in cities throughout the South, including Birmingham, Ala., and New Orleans.
The agents said they confirmed Gilliam had rented the hotel room being used for the woman's prostitution activities. They wrote that additional evidence of his involvement and management of her prostitution work was found in text messages on a cellphone she allowed the authorities to search. The woman told the agents Gilliam provided her "protection," transportation and lodging, and that all proceeds from her "dates" were turned over to him.
Gilliam's bond was set at $50,000 at his Friday appearance in magistrate court. If he is charged with and convicted of sex trafficking someone under the age of 21, Gilliam would face 15 to 50 years in state prison.
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