Portland trial offers rare look at the life of a teenaged prostitute -- and how Internet sex ads enriched a pimp
Apr
27
Written by:
4/27/2012 8:06 PM
In all the eye-opening testimony presented in a trial of a man accused of forcing a 17-year-old girl into prostitution, one stunning economic fact emerged: The 21-year-old defendant was making more money than anyone else in the Portland courtroom: at times as much as $2,000 to $3,000 in a single day.
According to the testimony of the girl he prostituted, Gus Wayne Rouse Jr. was sending her out on 10 tricks a day, forcing her to turn over everything she made. Once, when she tried to hide some of the money in the bathroom vent of a motel room, he choked her and warned her if she did it again, she'd get worse.
The week-long trial exposed a rarely told story of an underage prostitute, the johns who flocked to her and the pimp who ruled so absolutely. It also shined a light on the seedy underbelly of the Internet, where call girls in every corner of the state -- Lake Oswego, Bend, Roseburg, Beaverton -- are pictured scantily clad or nude, blatantly offering sex acts for money.
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