A woman who assisted a sex trafficker in prostituting young girls in Reston and Herndon hotels was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal judge on Friday.
Giedre Ruseckaite, 24, a Lithuanian citizen who had been living in Nevada, pled guilty to sex trafficking of a child in June.
According to court documents, Ruseckaite was the girlfriend and trusted assistant of Lenny Paul “2 Much” Haskins, 34, of Las Vegas, who was sentenced in May to 40 years in prison for sex trafficking of a child.
The charges stemmed from an incident in summer 2014, when authorities said Ruseckaite assisted Haskins in sex trafficking and prostituting two girls, ages 15 and 17. Haskins met the girls, runaways from foster care, in California. He instructed them to take a bus to Herndon from the purposes of being prostituted there, officials said.
Once he recruited them, Haskins also performed sex acts with the victims, officials said.
Haskins, who operated his ring in Northern Virginia for nearly a decade, frequently provided women and girls who were prostituted with various drugs, including marijuana, ecstasy, liquor, a drug known as “molly,” a drug concoction known as “lean,” and other controlled substances so that they could work longer without sleep, U.S. Justice Department documents said.
Even after Haskins was jailed, he continued to run his sex trafficking business from inside, officials said. With the assistance of Ruseckaite, proceeds from the sex trafficking conspiracy were forwarded to Haskins in jail so that he could purchase items and make telephone calls. Because jail calls are monitored, Haskins would give instructions via code words.
Authorities said Ruseckaite helped Haskins operate his venture in several ways, including assisting in the rental of hotel rooms where victims were prostituted; assisting in the collection of prostitution proceeds from victims; transporting victims; purchasing and distributing condoms to victims; advising the victims on how to perform sex acts; and assisting in the creation and posting of prostitution advertisements on Internet websites.
When Ruseckaite was arrested last spring, she was with her 3-year-old son at the Crowne Plaza Herndon on Elden Street. She was charged by Fairfax County Police with child neglect, prostitution and keeping a bawdy place.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office with substantial assistance from the Fairfax County Police Department and the Herndon Police Department.
Photo: Giedre Ruseckaite/FCPD
A Las Vegas man who pleaded guilty to prostituting teenage girls in Reston, Herndon and other parts of Northern Virginia, has been sentenced to 40 years in prison, federal authorities said.
Authorities said Lenny Paul “2 Much” Haskins, 34, had been operating in Northern Virginia for nearly a decade. He pleaded guilty to sex trafficking in U.S. District Court in Alexandria in January.
The charge Haskins pleaded to took place in Herndon last summer. Authorities said in June 2014, Haskins encountered two teens at a hotel near Sacramento, Calif. The girls, ages 15 and 17, were runaways from foster care. Haskins provided marijuana and eventually recruited them to prostitute for him. Once he recruited them, Haskins performed sex acts with the victims, officials said.
In August 2014, Haskins instructed the victims to take a bus to Herndon for the purposes of being prostituted there. Haskins arranged for advertisements to be posted on the Internet site www.Backpage.com to obtain sex customers for the juveniles.
The juveniles sent prostitution proceeds to Haskins using various money transfer businesses. The Las Vegas Police Department arrested Haskins in August 2014 but he continued to call the victims and give them directions from jail, authorities said.
Authorities said Haskins frequently provided drugs to the women and girls whom he prostituted. He instructed the women and girls whom he prostituted to call him “Daddy.” Some of the women prostituted by Haskins were tattooed with Haskins’s moniker “2 Much,” according to the FBI.
The FBI said Haskins set a monetary quota that the victims whom he prostituted were required to meet each day. For example, in some places, Haskins required these women and girls to earn $1,000 per day from prostitution, and provide him with these proceeds. After Haskins was incarcerated, he continued to run his prostitution business from jail.
Haskins had faced a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. After his 40-year sentence, he will have a life term of supervised release. The court also ordered Haskins to pay $538,250 in restitution to the victims and to forfeit $738,250 to the United States.
Haskins was also arrested in Nevada in 2012 in connection with the drowning of a child. At the time he had fugitive warrants from California for assault and parole violation, Virginia for assault and prostitution charges, and Texas for larceny charges.
Earlier this week, Haskins’ girlfriend, who was located with her 3-year-old son, was arrested at the Crowne Plaza Herndon. Geidre Ruseckaite, 24, was charged by Fairfax County Police with child neglect, prostitution and keeping a bawdy place. Federal authorities also had been looking for Ruseckaite in connection with the prostitution of the 15-year-old in Herndon.
Photo: Lenny Haskins/Credit: Las Vegas PD
The Fairfax County Police Department has released two new videos on how to prevent human trafficking.
Det. Bill Woolf of the FCPD’s Human Trafficking Unit advises parents to monitor their teenagers’ online activity to protect them from predators.
“If parents aren’t engaged, if they’re not monitoring their kids’ activities and behaviors, it’s very possible that they could be being scouted and manipulated into teen sex trafficking,” Woolf said.
Police promoted the videos on Tuesday for the one-year anniversary of the “Just Ask” Prevention Project, for which the Northern Virginia Human Trafficking Task Force received a $1 million federal grant.
More than 250 human trafficking victims were identified in Northern Virginia in the past year, Woolf told The Centreville Independent. Help was offered to victims after police received 141 tips from locals, Woolf said.
A Reston man was charged with sex trafficking in May after he manipulated a mentally incapacitated woman into prostitution, police said.
A Reston man has been arrested after Fairfax County Police said he was manipulating a mentally incapacitated woman into performing sex acts for money.
Robert Moore, 31, was charged with promoting prostitution, receiving earnings from prostitution and unauthorized use of a vehicle, police said.
Detectives from Fairfax County’s Human Trafficking Unit received information last week that a man was reportedly manipulating the 22-year-old woman into performing prostitution.
The investigation revealed that Moore has been using online advertising for the young woman’s commercial sex acts, transporting her to meet clients, and then keeping all money exchanged in the transactions, FCPD said in a news release.
FCPD has been trying to raise awareness of sex trafficking. Since January, FCPD has been conducting a public awareness campaign called “Just Ask.” The police have teamed with Fairfax County Public Schools and the county Office for Women & Domestic and Sexual Violence Services to tackle the issue, particularly as many teenage girls are targeted.
Police define trafficking as “the act of manipulating or forcing anyone to engage in a sex act in exchange for anything of value (money, drugs, shelter, food, clothes, etc.). FCPD says it identifies an average of two new potential victims per week.
Photo: Robert Moore of Reston/Credit: FCPD
