A Hagerstown man was arrested Friday in Frederick on three sex trafficking charges following an undercover investigation, according to a press release from the county’s sheriff’s office.
According to court records, Arcelius Dunbar Lyle III, 56, was charged with knowingly taking another person to a place for prostitution, receiving compensation to procure another person with the intent of causing another to engage in prostitution and possessing a government identification document of another while violating the same subsection of human trafficking laws.
The Human Trafficking Response Team, a multi-agency team, conducted an operation in which undercover investigators set up meetings with individuals from websites that advertise prostitution in the county, according to press release.
Once each woman arrived, the investigators would approach them to determine if there were signs of human trafficking. During the operation, the team made contact with five women, according to the sheriff’s office press release.
According to charging documents, late Thursday night, undercover law enforcement agreed to meet with a woman in a hotel lobby in Frederick after calling a number from an online ad. A vehicle driven by a man with a woman in the passenger seat arrived to the parking lot.
The woman walked into the hotel where she was met with an undercover officer who verified the agreement for the sexual act before signaling to the other officers who then approached and detained her, police said.
The charging documents state that Deputy First Class Daniel Schlosser then went into the hotel to interview the woman while other officers approached the man in the vehicle. During the interview, the woman said she keeps the profits she makes but that Lyle was holding it for her because she doesn’t have a purse.
The woman told law enforcement that she does prostitution of her own free will and is not forced to do so, according to charging documents.
The woman also consented to showing police text messages between her and Lyle of which police stated it appears she asks Lyle for permission for acts and prices to charge customers. In the parking lot, officers found the woman’s driver’s license in Lyle’s wallet along with approximately $100 in cash, which is consistent with what the woman told police.
The charging documents stated that the deputy “knows that a pimp/trafficker is a person who exerts control over and lives off the earnings of prostitutes under their control.”
Lyle is being held without bond at the Frederick County Adult Detention Center. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for Aug. 9.
The response team’s operation was focused on identifying and rescuing victims who were being trafficked for sexual exploitation and prostitution, according to the sheriff’s office press release.
The team, which was established in 2018, provides “a victim-centered, collaborative response” to human trafficking throughout the county.
The response team is comprised of members from the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, Frederick Police Department, Maryland State Police, Homeland Security Investigations and the Frederick County State’s Attorney’s Office.
“Once again, because of great teamwork with our local and federal partners, we were able to effectively identify and dismantle a prostitution and human trafficking network operating in Frederick County,” sheriff’s office chief deputy Colonel Dave Benjamin said.