Maryland

Maryland Rapper Charged With Human Trafficking of 23-Year-Old

The accused trafficker was identified Thursday as 31-year-old Monriko Mequel Clements of Silver Spring, Maryland

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State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle announced Thursday the arrest and extradition of an alleged human trafficker that fled to another state after the Florida Highway Patrol, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney’s Human Trafficking Task Force intervened to rescue the victim.

"The sad reality is that a modern-day form of slavery does exist as human trafficking -- a crime that will not stop without law enforcement and community involvement," the state attorney said.

The accused trafficker was identified Thursday as 31-year-old Monriko Mequel Clements of Silver Spring, Maryland.

Monriko Mequel Clements

At a press conference Thursday, Fernandez-Rundle said officials in Maryland arrested him in Fulton, Maryland after he brought the victim, a 23-year-old woman he met through an internet dating site, to Miami for the purpose of prostitution.

According to the arrest warrant, the two arranged a date in April to meet at a Baltimore strip club where he was performing. The warrant described Clements as rapper known as “King Swuice." They then began a relationship.

In a matter of weeks, investigators said the victim lost her job and that is when Clements offered her fast money by working as a prostitute where he would broker deals and give her drugs.

Clements later had his name and logo tattooed on the victim's body as a sign of ownership, investigators said.

According to authorities, the victim spent several months as Clements' sex slave, forced into prostitution, but never saw a dime of the money.

But on November 14, the victim reportedly jumped out of a moving vehicle along the Dolphin Expressway just east of Northwest 27th Avenue to escape from Clements because she did not want to engage in prostitution anymore.

FHP officers who came upon the scene reported that the victim told them that her boyfriend was hitting her while driving their rental vehicle.

The officers then reached out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who then contacted the State Attorney’s Human Trafficking Task Force.

Before her escape, investigators said the victim reached out to family for help, which led to a Florida City police investigation. That sparked the beating inside Clements' car.

Clements is facing one count of human trafficking, a first-degree felony, and one count of deriving proceeds of prostitution, a second-degree felony.

A 2012 report indicated that Florida ranked number three in the nation and Miami-Dade County ranked number one in Florida for the number of human trafficking cases," Fernandez-Rundle said. "We are quickly learned that we had a lot more learning to do and we needed to aggressively enhance our response to human trafficking incidents in our community."

According to Fernandez-Rundle , today the State Attorney’s Human Trafficking Task Force has filed nearly 800 human trafficking related criminal cases, and worked with more than 1000 victims of human trafficking.

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