mlive.com
Published: Tuesday, February 07, 2012, 5:03 PM Updated: Tuesday, February 07, 2012, 5:26 PM
GRAND RAPIDS – Police say the teen girls were taken from Orlando in a Greyhound bus and brought to West Michigan, where they were taken from hotel to hotel and sold to strange men for sex via the Internet.
But an attorney for defendant Marcus Dwane Manning Jr. says the teenagers were more than familiar with the sex trade and did not need to be forced into anything.
It will be up to a Kent County Circuit Court jury to decide if 25-year-old Manning will face up to 25 years in prison on charges of prostitution, human trafficking and involuntary servitude.
Chief Assistant Kent County Prosecutor Christopher Becker told the jury that in August, Manning was visiting family in Orlando when he met up with a 17-year-old girl.
Manning and the girl become involved in relationship and he took her to Miami before introducing her to his family in Florida.
He told the 17-year-old that he wanted to take her to Grand Rapids to meet other family members, Becker said.
The girl brought a 16-year-old friend along and the three ended up at the Super 8 Motel at 28th Street SE near Patterson Avenue.
“I wanted to get out of Florida,” said the younger girl who had run away from home, but said she managed to keep a 3.8 GPA in high school. “Things were not going well there.”
While there, Manning took pictures of the girls and uploaded them along with an ad for massage service on the website “Backpage.” Backpage is a site that works like Craig’s List and includes classified-type ads for a variety of goods and services including escort and “adult massage.”
The girls were allegedly offered up under the heading “Find Naughty Girls Near You.”
But while staying at the Super 8, the three were told to either leave or pay a fine after hotel staff determined marijuana was being smoked in the room, according to testimony. A hotel representative said the fee was for breaking the hotel's no-smoking rule.
The trio moved to the Howard Johnson’s on 28th Street SW near U.S. 131 in Wyoming.
There, Wyoming Police began surveillance and were ready to make an arrest, but the three moved with several other friends to the Gatehouse Suites on the East Beltline.
The girls were the breadwinners in the house, according to the 16-year-old alleged victim. They performed everything from topless massage to sexual intercourse for the men who answered the Internet ad, she said.
The younger girl was brought from Florida to testify in court on Tuesday, but the older teen, now 18, was nowhere to be found and her previous testimony was read to the jury.
The older teen previously testified that she wanted to stop selling herself for sex and told Manning she was going to return south. She said he smacked her around and told her she wasn’t going to leave.
“You’re going to make me some money,” Manning allegedly told the girl before punching her.
Both girls admitted they had engaged in sex acts for money previously.
Repeat offender Manning was arrested in September and is held at the Kent County Jail without bond. The trial, before Judge Mark Trusock, is expected to continue for at least two more days.
E-mail Barton Deiters: bdeiters@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/GRPBarton
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