Police found 16-year-old missing girl in colleague's house

 D.C. police search home of officer in investigation of
prostitution ring By Peter Hermann, Ann Marimow and Clarence Williams, E-mail the writers Authorities are investigating whether a veteran D.C. police officer was running a prostitution ring
out of his Southeast Washington apartment, where they found a 16-year-old girl who had been
reported missing, according to documents unsealed in federal court. The officer, who has been on the force 24 years, had not been arrested as of Thursday evening, but
he was put on paid administrative leave as police continued their investigation. The teenager told
police that the officer took nude photos of her and arranged for her to have sex for money, the
court papers say. News of the allegation broke publicly as
another D.C. police officer was in U.S. District
Court facing a federal charge of producing child pornography. Marc L. Washington, 32, was arrested Monday on allegations that he took
pictures of a semi-nude 15-year-old who had
run away from home. Authorities said it does not appear that the
cases are related, but the specter of having two
officers from the 7th District station house in
Southeast Washington investigated on crimes
linked to sexual abuse of minors has shaken the
4,000-member department. D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the department “is very
concerned about the recent allegations of
egregious conduct.” Lanier acknowledged that the cases could make
the force look bad, but she said that “misguided
actions of a few in no way reflects on the
professionalism, dedication and integrity of the
department.” The Washington Post is not naming the 47-
year-old officer because he not been charged
with a crime and was not identified in the search
warrant application, filed in U.S. District Court.
Efforts to reach him were not successful. It was unclear how investigators came to focus
on the officer and the apartment on Stanton
Road. The court documents state only that
detectives investigating a family’s report of a
missing 16-year-old girl learned that she might
be at the officer’s residence. Police went to the apartment Tuesday night and
the officer answered the door after repeated
knocks, according to court papers. He let them
in, and they reported that they immediately
smelled marijuana. Detectives were told that
two females were in a bedroom; one was the missing teen, the court documents stated, and
the other was an 18-year-old. Officers stayed at the apartment through the night and most of Wednesday, and after getting a
search warrant, they confiscated nine pairs of shoes, one bra, two boxes of condoms, computers
and cellphones. The court documents stated that they also took a mirror with names written on it
and that the 16-year-old told police that the names were of women who had worked as prostitutes. A high-ranking D.C. police official said authorities are still sorting through conflicting statements
and trying to determine precisely what was happening in the apartment. How the officer met the
girl was not described in documents made public thus far. According to court documents, the girl told police that she had gone to the officer’s apartment at
least twice and that the officer took nude photos of her wearing sparkly high-heeled shoes and
showed them to a potential customer. The man liked the photos, and was scheduled to meet her
and pay $80 for sex, the girl told police. Of that, she said, $20 was to go to the officer. The girl said
that the officer was to pay for her hairstyle, shoes and new clothes, and that her working name
would be “Juicy.” It was not clear whether the girl ever met the customer. The girl said that six other women worked out of the apartment and that advertisements were
posted on the Internet site backpage.com, the documents said. In U.S. District Court on Thursday, authorities were dealing with the separate case involving Marc
Washington. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola said he wanted to release the officer to stay with
his father in Waldorf, Md., and be put on electronic monitoring. But Facciola stayed the order 24
hours to give prosecutors a chance to appeal. “It is despicable for anyone to do this,” Facciola said of the alleged conduct. “For a police officer to
do this is beyond anyone’s imagination.” But with Washington’s gun and badge no longer in his possession, the judge said it “reduces
substantially” the possibility of the officer being able to abuse his previous position of authority.
The arresting officer told the judge that Washington’s police powers had been revoked and that he
was in the process of being suspended without pay. The officer’s attorney, Michelle Peterson, told the judge that her client “understands the serious
nature of the charges, but they are just that – charges.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ari Redbord said that investigators recovered dozens of photos from
Washington’s camera, including images of two semi-nude females who appeared to be minors, and
that they think there may be other victims. “He committed this crime on duty, in uniform and with
a firearm,” Redbord said in arguing for Washington to remain in custody. “He picked the most
vulnerable of victims in our community.”