A teenage girl who ran away from her Tamarac home fell into the hands of sex traffickers who prostituted her to hundreds of men in just a matter of weeks, police say.
She left on the evening of May Shortly afterward, she met a year-old woman named Racquel Bijou at a party, court documents state. Bijou offered to help the runaway girl make money, and when the girl took her up on the offer, Bijou explained the business, telling her she needed to prostitute herself, the court records say. And it was Bijou who began to arrange the buying and the selling, police said.
Bijou arranged for the runaway to meet men, some as old as 50, and to text Bijou with the time and the dollar amount of each sex act. The runaway went along with it because she had no money, and no place to stay, she told investigators. Court records show that on the evening of June 4, the runaway reported to Bijou prostituting herself six times between p. Bijou brought in two associates, year-old Jeremiah Horenstein and year-old Ashton Lewinson, police said.
Bijou and Horenstein took pictures of the runaway and posted them online on websites that advertise commercial sex acts, prosecutors say. Documents state that Horenstein, Bijou, and Lewinson assured that meetings with Johns were arranged. On at least three occasions, hotel rooms were booked, and Bijou, Horenstein, Lewinson, and the runaway would drive over to the hotels in a big flashy white Mercedes.
In the span of little less than a month, and at the direction of Bijou, Horenstein, and Lewinson, the runaway slept with hundreds of men, police said. The criminal complaint states the runaway told investigators she participated in at least one prostitution-related sex act with another unnamed year-old. But at one point, Bijou had a falling out with Horenstein, and the runaway ended up working for another woman, year-old Souprina Blanc, documents say.
