ST PAUL, Minn. — A 28-year-old Illinois man has been federally indicted on charges for trafficking sex workers from a hotel in Bloomington, according to federal charges.
According to the indictment and criminal complaint filed at the U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Darnell Stennis is charged with one count of sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion and one count of transporting individuals to engage in prostitution. Stennis is scheduled to be arraigned on these charges on Feb. 6, 2020.
The complaint says Stennis forced two women into commercial sex acts in March of 2019 in multiple states, including Minnesota and North Dakota.
According to the charges, Stennis wouldn't allow one of the women to stop working for him when she expressed the desire to leave.
The complaint said that officers were called to a room at the Bloomington hotel in late March of 2019 after reports of yelling and what sounded like someone being thrown against the wall in one of the rooms.
When officers arrived, they questioned Stennis and the two women, who were ages 26 and 23 about the reports. According to the complaint, Stenn "appeared nervous" and failed to provide any information as to what the argument was about.
According to the complaint, when officers inspected the room, they found "obvious signs of a disturbance, including luggage, clothing and other items thrown about the room."
One of the women said that Stennis had been using social media to prostitute her and the other women out of hotels. She told Stennis she no longer wanted to work for him, and he began arguing with her, the complaint says.
Prosecutors say the woman said that Stennis then shoved her in the bathroom and prevented her from leaving. Stennis began choking her and then bashed her head into the towel rack. Stennis then pushed the woman down onto the toilet seat, causing a visible bruise on her back. The woman was able to escape and ran to get help from the front desk of the hotel, according to the complaint.
The second woman told officials that she found Stennis through Facebook. Through Facebook communication, Stennis enticed her to work for him as a prostitute.
According to the complaint, the second woman said that Stennis had threatened her multiple times and spoke aggressively towards her.
