This is just an example of what with happen at the Beacon.

Cops: Jersey City 'pimps' forced women into prostitution for drugs

by Michaelangelo Conte
Tuesday September 16, 2008


Society Hill in Jersey City, where three people have been charged with promoting prostitution and human trafficking.





A Jersey City pimp named "Prince" and two cohorts have been arrested in an upscale Jersey City development and charged with promoting prostitution and human trafficking for forcing heroin-addicted women to turn tricks in exchange for drugs and shelter, officials said.

"Heroin addiction is one of the worst things you could possibly see and to hold these woman and give them heroin ... After we got them back they were dope sick and vomiting," said Special Investigations Unit Sgt. Wally Wolfe in disgust.

Arrested on Friday on Lions Court in the gated Society Hill enclave was Allen Eugene Brown, 47, aka "Prince;" Anthony Evans, 50; and Annie Cooper, 39, aka "China," said Wolfe. All were charged with promoting prostitution and human trafficking, while Brown and Cooper were also charged with possession of heroin and possession with intent to distribute, Wolfe said Monday.

During several months of surveillance police found that the ring was recruiting women mostly from South Jersey and the Philadelphia area and they would introduce the women to heroin if they were not already using it, Wolfe said.

"They were enticed to come to Jersey City to be put to work as prostitutes with the promise of heroin but once they started, they had to pay a certain amount to get back into the house," Wolfe said.

Wolfe said the prostitutes worked on Tonnelle Avenue and had to pay $500 on a weeknight and $1,000 on a weekend night to get back into the Society Hill residence. Once inside, they were strip-searched and they had access to heroin, food, clothing and shelter, Wolfe said, adding that up to 10 women at a time were housed at the residence.

"You'd have to be dumb not to know," said a neighbor when asked if she knew Brown was a pimp. The neighbor, who did not want her name used, said a police officer living nearby confirmed her suspicions about Brown.

She also said she'd seen Brown driving around in the flashy Rolls Royce Silver Spirit II, with tinted windows and oversized rims, parked outside his residence. The building where the three defendants were arrested is in the newest section of Society Hill and is located on the Newark Bay.

When police broke down the door of the home at 8 a.m. they found two women who had just arrived and one was snorting heroin while the other was injecting it, Wolfe said. They pair were not charged, and are being considered victims.

Brown and Cooper were arrested in a bedroom and Evans in the kitchen, Wolfe said, adding that police found 17 bags of suspected heroin hidden in a toilet tank, as well as $500 and prostitution records.

"Pretty much every woman down there on the strip at one time was under his direction," Wolfe said of the prostitutes who were transported by the ring to work on Tonnelle Avenue and the hotels there.

Brown has a 1991 conviction for "pimping" in Essex County, and Cooper has a prior conviction for promoting prostitution, Wolfe said. All three defendants remain in jail, each on $300,000 bail, Wolfe said.

Investigators are still trying to determine if the ring operated additional "stables," Wolfe said.