Since a 17-year-old girl begged a security guard for help last week at a Detroit shoe store, at least a dozen girls and young women in recent days have told police a similar story of how the man called “Chicago” beat, raped and bullied them into the sex trade across five Midwestern states.
The girls, most of them runaways, said after Henry Davis, 32, flashed rolls of cash and lured them with promises of jobs selling jewelry, the former Chicagoan raped and beat them, forced them to perform as strippers at parties and after-hours clubs, and to have sex for money. He carted them across the Midwest for clandestine sexual encounters, according to police, from cities such as Chicago and Milwaukee to rural Wisconsin resort areas.
When they stepped out of line, he turned them against each other, forcing them to beat each other as the consequence for trying to leave or causing him trouble, Detroit police said.
“If a person tried to leave they would suffer serious physical consequences. It’s how they kept them in line. They were sexually assaulted and then beaten up,” Detroit Police Cmdr. Gerard Simon said.
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The sex ring operated like a gang or cult, according to Detroit police. Those assaults were called “the violate” or “a beatdown.”
Davis was charged with transporting a female for prostitution, kidnapping and two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the case of the Cleveland girl. He was being held in a Detroit jail on $2 million bond Friday.
While police and advocates for exploited children say that such treatment by pimps is not an uncommon fate for runaway girls, investigators are just beginning to piece together the specifics of Davis’ alleged prostitution ring.
Cleveland girl’s plea
Detroit police said that at least 15 men and women were involved in running the ring. Often Davis and others would hang out at strip clubs and pitch the girls’ services to men as they left the clubs, Detroit Police Sgt. James Tolbert said.
A lawyer for the 17-year-old Cleveland girl, whose plea for help to a Foot Locker security guard finally led to Davis’ arrest Monday, said the girls were kept in a constant state of confusion about their whereabouts.
“There were no phones or clocks,” lawyer Avery Friedman said. They were told to call Davis “Mr. Daddy” and also knew him as “Tony” and “Chicago.”
The girls, along with the men and women who ran the ring, lived a transitory life, moving from one motel room to another in various states, Simon said. The victims who escaped were unable to remember exact addresses or names of clubs or motels where they danced illegally or were forced to have sex, police said.
“The girls we are dealing with are young, unsophisticated, often runaways who think they are more streetwise than they are,” Simon said. “Their reports were sketchy and didn’t have a lot of information. There wasn’t a lot to work with.”
Girls who may have gone willingly at first because of the jewelry pitch, were forced by fear and intimidation to stay with the group, according to police.
“There were sexual assaults, beatings, videotapes of beatings of other girls who tried to leave,” Simon said. “It was like that old-style pimp thing you’d see on bad TV shows.”
Last Chicago address in 1999
Little is known about Davis, who Simon said claimed he was providing for the girls’ best interests. His last known address in Chicago was in the 6900 block of South Stony Island Avenue, according to a state identification card he received in 1999.
“He said he was treating them like family,” Simon said, giving them meals and a place to stay.
Detroit police first suspected Davis of involvement in prostitution after a September 2000 disturbance at a motel. Davis was there with a number of girls who alleged they had been kidnapped. Police tried to build a case against Davis, said Lt. Mike Walsh, who heads Detroit’s Sex Crimes Unit. “But the girls vanished in the wind . . . Unless the victim sticks around you can’t get a warrant.”
Police said the Cleveland victim provided a badly needed break. After she contacted police, she was able to lead investigators back to Davis’ rented house, where they found girls ranging in age from 13 to 21.
Todd Harris, who lives a few doors down, said the inhabitants “looked normal” but he acknowledged a lot of girls–15 to 20–could be seen coming and going form the home on any given day.
A man who was at the home Friday but would not give his name, described Davis as “a good, kind-hearted man . . . He helps people.”
The victim from Cleveland had been standing at a bus stop in her hometown with an acquaintance on Jan. 9 when they were approached by a man and woman who talked about a job making “a lot of cash” daily, according to a Cleveland police report. The man showed the girls a wad of bills and told them his boss was at a nearby bar. The victim’s acquaintance stayed behind and watched as the 17-year-old walked off with the man, according to the report.
Friedman said his client was taken first to Detroit, where she was allegedly raped, and then to Wisconsin, somewhere near the Cascade Mountain ski resort outside Portage, where she told police she was raped by a man wearing a badge. Columbia County, Wis., sheriff’s police said they know nothing of an alleged sexual assault there. Detroit police have said the victim allegedly was raped in Chicago.
Girls fit a stereotype
Police say the typical girl Davisapproached was a young, black female. The girls were vulnerable, often runaways. The scenario is not uncommon, experts say.
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The Cleveland girl, though, didn’t fit that mold and ultimately, that might have saved her because she wanted desperately to go home, her lawyer said.
“She comes from an extraordinarily devoted and loving family,” Friedman said. “The mistake they made is that she isn’t a runaway or a product of extreme dysfunctionality.”