MIAMI – Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced an arrest Thursday in what her office described as a “human trafficking extradition and rescue.”
Fernandez Rundle held a news conference at 2:30 p.m.
She discussed charges against an “alleged human trafficker who fled to another state after the Florida Highway Patrol, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney’s Human Trafficking Task Force intervened to rescue the victim.”
Fernandez Rundle, flanked by officials from the FHP and FDLE, identified the accused trafficker as Monriko Clements, 31, of Silver Spring, Maryland.
She said officials arrested him in Fulton, Maryland and extradited him to South Florida.
Fernandez Rundle said Clements brought the victim, a 23-year-old woman whom he met through dating app Tinder, to the Miami area from Maryland for the purpose of prostitution.
An arrest warrant states Clements is a rapper known as “King Swuice,” and that the two arranged a date in April to meet at a Baltimore strip club where he was performing his music, leading to a relationship.
Fernandez Rundle said Clements gave the woman cocaine and MDMA regularly, which she said is a common tactic sex traffickers use to keep their victims “pliant.”
After three weeks of being in a relationship, the woman lost her job at Chipotle “and was extremely worried about how she was going to provide for herself and her children,” the warrant states.
But prosecutors allege Clements knew of a way to make “fast money”: She could sell her body in South Florida and he would set up the dates.
Clements set up a page for the woman on an escorting site and told her what to charge for the prostitution dates: $120 for 15 minutes, $200 for 20 minutes and $300 for an hour.
According to prosecutors, Clements took $20,000 in prostitution proceeds. The victim didn’t get a dime.
Clements also forced the woman to tattoo “KSwuice” above her left breast as a “sign of his possession over her, indicating that she belonged to him,” the warrant states.
Tattoo:
Fernandez Rundle said the victim jumped out of a moving vehicle on the Dolphin Expressway, just east of Northwest 27th Avenue in Miami on Nov. 14 to escape Clements, who was beating her because she did not want to engage in prostitution anymore.
She had told Clements that she was “tired and weary” of having so many prostitution dates, the warrant states.
His proposal? She could become a madam working under him beginning in January, running an escort/dating service, where she would have to “recruit girls, run the website, show the girls what to do and give the money to (him),” the warrant states.
After jumping from the vehicle, victim told Florida Highway Patrol troopers that she had come to Florida the week prior to engage in prostitution in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the warrant.
But before her escape on the highway, the woman had called her mother on the morning of Nov. 14 to tell her mother she was in danger, was being physically and verbally abused, and to call police, according to the warrant. The woman’s mother called Maryland State Police, who in turn contacted Florida City police.
Police responded to a hotel the woman was staying at, but she told responding officers that there was no altercation, just arguing, she was scared and it was “her fault.”
Florida city officers discovered an open California warrant for Clements but were unable to take him into custody, as it was non-extraditable, the warrant states.
After that, the pair headed to Miami Beach, where, on the drive, Clements “threatened to kill her and boasted that her family would not be able to find her,” according to prosecutors.
As the woman was being beaten, the warrant states she took advantage of heavy traffic that slowed the rented Mitsubishi SUV down to jump onto the Dolphin Expressway and yell for help.
Clements got out of the vehicle and tried to bring her back in the car, but a passerby stopped to render aid, causing Clements to leave, prosecutors said.
Clements was charged with human trafficking and deriving proceeds from prostitution.
Prosecutors encouraged anyone who is or knows a victim of human trafficking to call the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office human trafficking hotline at 305-349-7867.