Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - Human Trafficking in Pinellas County Part 2

By Nick Dorsten, Esq.

This is the second part of a human trafficking story I had previously written about. It now looks like the suspect has more criminal charges added (story from the St. Petersburg Times website)...

LARGO — It all comes down to whose side of the story you believe: hers or his?

Twice now, Largo police have said they trust the version provided by a 23-year-old woman who said she was repeatedly drugged by her live-in boyfriend and kept a virtual prisoner in his home.

Most recently, police expressed confidence that the 63-year-old suspect manipulated the woman into submission when they added more charges stemming from his human trafficking arrest in June.

But the woman who originally claimed she was a victim has changed her story more than once.

To understand the bizarre saga, you have to go back to the beginning.

In June, Largo police charged the man with human trafficking after they were called to his home in his neighborhood south of Ulmerton Road for a domestic dispute. The woman at the house told police he was giving her oxycodone in exchange for sexual favors and that she was being kept against her will.

According to arrest reports, police executed a search warrant and found prescription drugs, more than $80,000 and a ledger detailing how much oxycodone the man was giving her. Police said they believed he was taking advantage of the woman's drug addiction.

In an interview with a local newspaper in June, the 23-year-old woman said the suspect threatened to harm her if she told anyone what was happening. She also said that the man paid two people to fill prescriptions and give him the prescription pills.

The woman got a restraining order against the suspect on June 21, the day he was arrested on the trafficking charge. He bonded out of jail, but was ordered not to have contact with the woman.

In the latest arrest, police said the man violated the terms of his pre-trial release by sending the woman numerous text messages. They said he promised the woman drugs and that he would pay to help her move away from the area if she "would sign a written statement to his attorney that she lied to the police" and drop the injunction, arrest reports show. For that, police said, he was charged with tampering with a witness.

On July 19, the woman went to the office of the suspect's criminal defense attorney and signed an affidavit saying that pretty much everything police based their case on was not true and that the statement police took from her was filled with "inaccuracies."

In the affidavit, the woman said the man only controlled her medication to ensure she didn't overdose, that he never held her against her will and that he never engaged in any drug deals.

But police said they have identified the two men the suspect was paying for the pill prescriptions. For that, they said, he was also charged Thursday with two counts of conspiracy.

A Largo police spokesman said Friday the additional charges came out of the ongoing investigation and that the woman lied in the affidavit after the suspect "promised her more drugs and a better life."

The suspect was being held in the Pinellas County Jail on Friday without bail.

However his attorney said that the police are "taking advantage of a severely addicted girl, woman really," he said. "They continue to just accept what she says whenever the whim strikes her. She'll turn around next week and say none of this is true."

He further went on and said he has cell phone records to show the woman called his client 31 times after his arrest in June.

Have you been arrested on prescription pill or trafficking in oxycodone charges? Then the Pinellas, Florida based Blake & Dorsten, P.A. Pinellas criminal defense lawyers are at your service.

For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Pinellas County criminal defense attorneys, please contact the law firm of BLAKE AND DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141or email the defense lawyers at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com