A gang member from Prince William County has been arrested and accused of prostituting runaway girls.
Court records show that 20-year-old Ramiro Espinoza Jamaica was taken into custody in Manassas this week. He is charged with sex-trafficking of children and is one of at least a half-dozen Northern Virginia gang members accused of running prostitution rings over the past year.
Jamaica is a "self-admitted member" of the Manassas Park Locos clique of the SUR-13 gang, a violent group that has members throughout Central and North America, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Alexandria.
The complaint says a 14-year-old girl told FBI agents last fall that she ran away and lived with Jamaica -- who also goes by the names "Criminal" and "Junior" -- during the winter and early spring of 2011.
For three months, Jamaica abused and prostituted the girl, the complaint says. The girl told investigators that Jamaica "would hit her with a closed fist and once choked her to the point of unconsciousness."
In one instance, two men arrived at Jamaica's apartment and Jamaica told the girl that she was going to have sex with them and would keep half the money she earned, according to the complaint. After she had sex with one of the men, the girl told Jamaica that she "never wanted to do that again," the complaint says. Jamaica told her, "my other homegirls do it, why can't you."
The girl also told the FBI that Jamaica initially refused to give her any money, though he eventually gave her $20.
Other witnesses told investigators that Jamaica would get the girl drunk so she would have sex.
Another person who knows Jamaica told the FBI that Jamaica lived with, slept with and pimped out runaway girls. The witness told agents that he asked Jamaica about the girls' young ages; Jamaica said he did not care and "all you have to do is get them drunk or high and they will do whatever you want."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis on Tuesday ordered Jamaica to remain in custody pending further court proceedings. A detention and preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
The federal public defender representing Jamaica could not be reached for comment.
At least five members of another gang, the notorious MS-13, have faced charges in recent months over similar prostitution operations.
