By Roberto Bustamante
18 Oct 2023, 1:00 PM EDT
A man was arrested for running what federal prosecutors called a brazen outdoor commercial sex market along a stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, known as Penn Track.
The indictment filed in federal court points to Douglas Welchwho called himself “Paradise,” of sex trafficking, interstate prostitution, conspiracy to sex trafficking and promotion of prostitution, authorities revealed in a press release.
“Welch has trafficked multiple women for his own financial gain while boasting about the cruel and brutal violence he has inflicted on vulnerable victims,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. “The prosecution will hold the defendant accountable in federal court for the crimes of exploitation of him,” he added.
According to The New York Post, the 40-year-old recruited women to work at Penn Track and routinely He threatened them with physical violence if they disobeyed his orders..
“If you f**k with pimping, I will break your head,” he allegedly told one victim, according to court documents consulted by the Law & Crime site.
Also He bragged about knocking out trafficking victims who disrespected him. to him or other traffickers. In one case, he grabbed a woman by her neck, threw her to the sidewalk and punched her across her body for disrespecting another pimp, authorities said in the news release.
Phone calls gave him away
Officials released court documents describing several calls the suspect allegedly made, demonstrating his alleged use of violence.
In a call on August 31, 2021, the defendant told someone incarcerated at the time that he had to pay to fix the teeth of a woman who was working, because he broke them “by mistake, without knowing my strength.”
“I ended up punching three of his teeth out.…I had to pay to get his teeth fixed and all that,” he said on the call. “That cost me because I lost 30,000 and spent money fixing his mouth,” she added.
Welch also allegedly promoted the prostitution of other women and took some of them to the NFL Pro Bowl in February 2022 to work the streets.
The man is in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, and The charges he faces carry a sentence of between 15 years and life in prison..
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