A man who convinced two teenage girls to go on prostituting road trips from Chicago to the Washington area was able to intimidate one of the girls to stay silent when questioned by a federal grand jury.
Freddie B. Wright III has pleaded guilty to interstate transportation for prostitution and witness tampering charges. He’s scheduled to be sentenced Friday and could receive up to three years in prison.
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Prosecutors say Wright was a “pimp who preyed upon young women. He was driven by greed and the desire to make money the easy way.”
He admitted to pulling the first girl, known as Jane Doe No. 1, into his web from a Chicago group home in December 2007. The teen was not a minor, but was still attending high school. Wright gave her marijuana and started selling her for sex in Chicago area hotel rooms. In January 2008, they went to Philadelphia, then on to Washington. She was rescued by police from an Alexandria Sheraton hotel room during a sting set up after Wright advertised the teen on Craigslist.
But Wright wasn’t caught and he returned to Chicago, court documents said. In May 2008 he recruited another teenage girl, who also was barely legal, he admitted. Jane Doe No. 2 had sex with seven or eight men the first night Wright pimped her. He took Jane Doe No. 2 on a road trip, too. They traveled to New Jersey, Washington, Florida and North Carolina.
In October 2008, Jane Doe No. 2 was arrested while with a customer at the Americana Hotel in Arlington, court documents said.
Authorities said they held her as a material witness. But as officials waited for her to testify before a grand jury, she spoke to Wright from jail, court documents said. During the recorded conversations, Wright told the teen to “Be smart, zip it up,” and “Be a soldier, don’t talk,” records said. His manipulation, prosecutors said, held up the girl’s testimony for several months.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton, Wright’s mother, Darlene, pleaded for mercy.
Wright, she wrote, has been attending barber school and is a “talented and creative musician.” He also has a 9-year-old daughter.
“He is a great father,” she wrote, “and has been supporting [his daughter] and he loves her very much.”
