Mother and son charged with kidnapping, sex trafficking two 13-year-olds from Lynwood home
A mother-son pair was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of children for allegedly abducting and pimping out two 13-year-old girls last summer, federal prosecutors said in court papers.
Reuben Gilliam and Daisy Pollard-Gilliam were arrested last month and indicted Wednesday for their involvement in the kidnapping of the two teens, who were missing for six days in June after they disappeared on the street in Bell Gardens, prosecutors said.
The girls, referred to only as Victim 1 and Victim 2 in court papers, were snatched on the street by Gilliam and two other men who approached them in a car around 2:00 a.m. on June 3, prosecutors alleged.
One of the men hopped out of the car and told the girls to get in or else another man in the car would force them into the vehicle, said an FBI agent in an affidavit filed in the case.
The girls got in the car and were taken to a residence on Flower Street in Lynwood that the federal agent said belonged to Pollard-Gilliam. Pollard-Gilliam rented the home out on Airbnb, the agent said.
A teacher in San Bernardino County was arrested after being accused of lewd conduct with a 16-year-old girl, according to authorities.
Over the course of the next week, the girls were pimped out to men who paid $100 for sex, according to the affidavit. Gilliam also had sexual relations with the underage teens, prosecutors said.
One of the girls told investigators she was drugged with pills that made her weak and dizzy and that she was chained to a chest of drawers when she was not being forced to have sex.
Gilliam and Pollard-Gilliam dressed the girls in lingerie and forced them to pose for pictures to advertise them for commercial sex, according to the affidavit.
On June 8, the girls were allegedly taken to a residence in Sunland that they called “the mansion in the hills.”
The next day, the owner of the house came in and ordered the girls to leave, the affidavit said. The man later told agents that someone had broken into his residence and the girls did not have permission to be there.
The suspect allegedly carried the boy out of the Koreatown Target store before she was confronted by his parents.
The girls used a phone that their abductors had given them to call Pollard-Gilliam, who got them to an RV in Gardena, according to the affidavit.
That same day, the girls were rescued from the RV by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies, the agent said. The affidavit does not say how the girls were saved or what led the sheriff’s department deputies to the RV.
Investigators became aware in January that Pollard-Gilliam was also sharing nude photos and videos of the girls with inmates at Kern Valley State Prison, the affidavit said.
Gilliam had been advertising the girls for sex on Instagram before they escaped and told one person that he was going to put videos of them on OnlyFans and PornHub, two porn websites, according to the affidavit.
Pollard-Gilliam was arrested April 24 and Gilliam was arrested April 27.
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