Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
A woman was struggling with addiction and looking for a way to make money when she called an escort service she found online.<\/p>\n
She was asked a series of questions: How old was she? How tall? How much did she weigh? What color were her eyes and hair?<\/p>\n
And then she was told someone would come by soon to take her to her first client.<\/p>\n
Later, the woman testified in court last week, a bearded man picked her up and kept her under his control for the next three days. He took her to hotels and short-term rentals across the city and arranged for men to pay her for sex. The man took most of what she earned, she said, then sold her drugs in exchange for the little money she had left.<\/p>\n
She got away only when state police found her in a room at the Roosevelt Inn in Northeast Philadelphia<\/a>.<\/p>\n The woman\u2019s testimony was the centerpiece of a human trafficking case<\/a> in which state prosecutors accused 54-year-old Terrance Jones of running what he described as an \u201cescort business\u201d from his Lawndale<\/a> home \u2014 but that prosecutors say exploited women for more than a decade. <\/p>\n Jones, they said, posed as a woman, disguising his voice and calling himself \u201cJulia\u201d as he spoke on the phone to build the trust of and recruit vulnerable women across the Philadelphia region to work for the business, called \u201cthe Girlfriend Experience.\u201d Once they agreed to work for him, Jones and others controlled them by providing drugs, money, and housing, and coerced them into having sex with men for little pay, said Senior Deputy Attorney General Zachary Wynkoop. <\/p>\n State investigators identified Jones during a two-year probe into his operation, in which authorities said they found more than a dozen victims. In 2024, the attorney general\u2019s office charged 22 people who they said played roles in the criminal enterprise, including drivers, customers, and even Jones\u2019 daughter<\/a>, who they said helped manage its finances.<\/p>\n Last week, Jones was convicted of human trafficking and involuntary servitude, charges that could send him to prison for decades.<\/p>\n His operation brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n In just 10 days in 2023, they said, the business made about $20,000. But Jones and his associates took most of the money, then sold the women drugs and provided them housing and transportation to keep them dependent on the business.<\/p>\n Through it all, Wynkoop said, Jones kept the women \u201cbroke and addicted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese traffickers pick women who have unstable lives, a lack of a safety net around them, addiction issues, mental health issues,\u201d the prosecutor said in an interview after the trial. \u201cThey very often are picking targets who they believe will be malleable to their cause. They are absolutely profiting off human suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocates and prosecutors say Jones\u2019 case offered a window into a form of exploitation that often remains hidden. Traffickers, they said, exert control that victims can struggle to recognize, police can struggle to discern, and prosecutors can find difficult to prove.<\/p>\n Those challenges were reflected in Jones\u2019 trial. While officials said he victimized more than a dozen women, only one testified in court. Two victims died of an overdose before trial, and investigators could not reach or were unable to interview several others. <\/p>\n \u201cIn addition to being a victim of Terrance Jones, many of these women are also still suffering in the throes of addiction,\u201d Wynkoop said. \u201cAt some point, a decision was made that we had a woman willing to testify, and that it was better to move forward than continue to delay.\u201d <\/p>\n The obstacles of such cases are also reflected in court records: Just 50 human trafficking cases have been filed in Philadelphia in the last decade, only 11 of them brought between 2020 and 2025, according to data from the district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Jones\u2019 trial also came as the city grappled with disturbing news of a house in Olney<\/a> where police believe Raymond Horsch preyed on women in addiction for years<\/a>, luring them to his home to appear in violent pornographic films in exchange for money, drugs, and housing.<\/p>\n Horsch has been linked to seven missing women, including five who police believe are dead and were last seen in his company. Horsch died last year at 82 from lung issues. <\/p>\n The case has put a spotlight on the vulnerabilities of women in addiction and the resources law enforcement invest in apprehending their abusers.<\/p>\n