Update - 11/22/24:
Leach has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, distribution of a controlled dangerous substance–cocaine, and receiving the earnings of her victims.
Sentencing is scheduled for February 18, 2025. She remains held without bond and faces a maximum sentence of 40 years behind bars.
Original Story:
A Baltimore woman has been indicted on 135 counts of operating a sex trafficking ring.
Prosecutors say Kenika Danielle Leach, 33, took at least 11 different women from Hagerstown to various hotels throughout Baltimore and Anne Arundel County for prostitution purposes.
Police were alerted of the operation back in December 2021 when a woman being seen at a local hospital told staff she was being trafficked.
This launched a two-year probe which revealed Leach was running an organization advertised as the "Pussy Kat Klub."
Customers reportedly paid Leach directly through CashApp, while the women would be compensated with drugs.
"By giving the victims drugs, Leach created a dynamic within which the women became indebted to her for a “drug debt,” which they were then forced to repay by engaging in commercial sex acts," the Maryland Attorney General's Office said in a release.
Prosecutors also accuse Leach of battering the women if they disobeyed her.
"For example, when Leach intended to physically assault the women as punishment for disobeying her rules, she would order them to “get on the wall” and cover their faces so that she could batter them without impacting their physical appearance," the Attorney General's release states.
Leach is next due in court on June 24.
