Nearly a year ago, two 13-year-old girls were walking down a street in central California when they were forced into a car and taken to an Airbnb, where they were raped for days, according to court documents recently filed in federal court.
The girls later told investigators that one of the three men inside the car, who was not identified in the documents, told them to “get in, otherwise” another man “would come out and put them in the vehicle.”
This happened on June 3, 2023, at around 2 a.m., in Bell Gardens, a city in Los Angeles County, according to an affidavit written by an FBI special agent that was filed in support of a criminal complaint filed on June 22. Of april.
The criminal complaint accuses Reuben Gilliam, the third man inside the car, and Daisy Pollard-Gilliam, who is allegedly the owner of Airbnb, with conspiracy to commit child sex trafficking.
Gilliam is accused of raping the two 13-year-old girls and having plans to film them for OnlyFans and Pornhub content before they were rescued by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department on June 9, the affidavit says.
Gilliam is not yet in federal custody, but has been detained since May 7, according to Ciaran McEvoy, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
He “is in state custody on unrelated charges and we expect him to appear in federal court in the coming days,” McEvoy told McClatchy News in an emailed statement.
Daisy Pollard-Gilliam was arrested on April 24, pursuant to her arrest warrant. She is scheduled to appear in court May 9 for a preliminary hearing, court records show.
A federal defender appointed to represent her did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News. Information about Gilliam’s legal representation was not immediately available.
What happened at Airbnb
After Gilliam and the other two men kidnapped the teens on June 3, according to the affidavit, they went to Daisy Pollard-Gilliam’s Airbnb on Flower Street in Lynwood, California.
The address mentioned in the statement no longer appears to be active on Airbnb. McClatchy News reached out to Airbnb for more information and did not immediately receive a response.
While at the Airbnb, “over the course of the following week, both minor victims were forced to have sexual relations with the suspects, including REUBEN, as well as several other adult males (‘clients’), to ‘make money,’” the testimony states.
Gilliam and Pollard-Gilliam are accused of collecting money from “clients,” according to the affidavit.
One of the girls told investigators that “she was sometimes handcuffed to a dresser when her captors left her alone in the room.”
Sometimes Gilliam forced her to take pills, the affidavit says.
Additionally, Gilliam and Pollard-Gilliam had the teens pose for photos in commercial sex ads, according to the affidavit.
Teenagers taken to ‘mansion in the mountains’
The day before the girls were rescued, according to the affidavit, they were taken to a Sunland home owned by an “older man” on June 8.
The girls told investigators the residence was a “mountain mansion,” the affidavit says.
It is unclear what happened the rest of June 8.
The next day, June 9, the owner arrived at the residence and “told them to leave,” the affidavit says.
According to the lawsuit, the girls “ran away.” The homeowner later told investigators that “someone broke into” his home and the teens were not allowed there.
Afterward, the teens called Pollard-Gilliam, who ordered a rideshare vehicle that took them to McDonald’s, the affidavit says.
Then, “unidentified male suspects” picked them up and drove them “to a parked recreational vehicle” in Gardena, according to the affidavit.
That night, deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Compton station rescued the girls from the trailer with a California license plate linked to Gilliam-Pollard’s phone number, the affidavit says.
The LASD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on May 7.
More about the case
In January, investigators discovered that Pollard-Gilliam shared inappropriate images of the teens with an inmate at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano, California, the affidavit says.
Meanwhile, a federal search of Gilliam’s Instagram account revealed that he was messaging other users about the girls, the affidavit states.
The FBI agent wrote in the affidavit that he believes Gilliam was explaining to a person that “he had many women, including the two underage victims, to be filmed for Only Fans and Porn Hub.”
According to an analysis published in January by the Social Research Laboratory at the University of Northern Colorado, sex trafficking is being “facilitated” on OnlyFans, as discovered by researchers and investigative journalists.
An OnlyFans spokesperson told McClatchy News on May 7 that adults cannot “post images of minors on OnlyFans.”
“All creators undergo extensive age and identification checks before they can upload content to the platform. This means we know the identity of everyone on the platform,” said the spokesperson.
After Pollard-Gilliam appears for her initial hearing, she is scheduled to return to court for a post-charge arraignment scheduled for May 14, court records show.
Gilliam and Pollard-Gilliam were not indicted until May 7, according to court records.
Sex trafficking is a form of human trafficking, a “exploitation crime,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Traffickers profit from their victims by forcing them to perform sexual acts or work.
In the U.S., children in foster care or juvenile justice systems, such as foster homes, are the most vulnerable to human trafficking, according to authorities.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911.
To report potential trafficking situations, you can contact the national hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or chat with the online hotline.
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