A man accused of kidnapping and raping 13-year-olds on Airbnb had plans for OnlyFans, U.S. officials say

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 in the car, who was not identified in the documents, said they should “get in or else” another man would “get out and put them in the vehicle.”

This happened around 2 a.m. on June 3, 2023, in Bell Gardens, a city in Los Angeles County, according to an FBI special agent’s affidavit filed in support of a criminal complaint filed on April 22.

The criminal complaint accuses Reuben Gilliam, the third man in the car, and Daisy Pollard-Gilliam, who is said to be the owner of the Airbnb, of conspiring to sex traffic children.

Gilliam is accused of raping the two 13-year-old girls and planning to film them for content on OnlyFans and Pornhub 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 was arrested on May 7, according to Ciaran McEvoy, a 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 said in an emailed statement to McClatchy News.

According to her arrest warrant, Pollard-Gilliam was arrested on April 24. She is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on May 9, according to court records.

A federal public 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 two other men kidnapped the teens on June 3, according to the affidavit, they headed to Pollard-Gilliam’s Airbnb on Flower Street in Lynwood, California.

The address listed in the affidavit appears to no longer be active on Airbnb. McClatchy News contacted Airbnb for more information and did not receive an immediate response.

During their stay at the Airbnb, “both underage victims were scheduled to have sexual intercourse with the suspects, including REUBEN, as well as numerous other adult men (“customers”) over the next week in order to “earn money,” the affidavit states.

Gilliam and Pollard-Gilliam are accused of collecting cash from “customers,” 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.”

At times, Gilliam forced her to take pills, the affidavit states.

In addition, Gilliam and Pollard-Gilliam had the teens pose for photos for commercial sex advertisements, the affidavit says.

Young people brought to “Villa in the Mountains”.

A day before their rescue, the girls were driven to a home in Sunland owned by an “older man” on June 8, according to the affidavit.

The girls told investigators that the residence was a “mansion in the mountains,” the affidavit states.

It’s unclear what happened the rest of the day on June 8th.

The next day, June 9, the homeowner arrived at the residence and “ordered them to vacate the residence,” the affidavit states.

According to the files, the girls “escaped.” The homeowner later told investigators that “someone broke into his house” and the teens were not allowed inside.

The teens then called Pollard-Gilliam, who ordered a rideshare vehicle that drove them to a McDonald’s, the affidavit said.

Then “unidentified male suspects” picked her up and drove her “to a parked recreational vehicle” in Val Gardena, the affidavit says.

That evening, officers from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s Compton station rescued the girls from the mobile home with a California license plate linked to Gilliam-Pollard’s phone number, the affidavit said.

The LASD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on May 7.

More about the case

In January, investigators determined that Pollard-Gilliam had shared inappropriate images of the teenagers with an inmate at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano, California, the affidavit said.

Meanwhile, a federal search of Gilliam’s Instagram account revealed that he was sending other users messages about the girls, the affidavit said.

The FBI agent wrote in the affidavit that he believed Gilliam told one person that “he had many women with him, including the two underage victims, who were to be filmed for Only Fans and Porn Hub.”

Sex trafficking is “facilitated” on OnlyFans, researchers and investigative journalists have uncovered, according to an analysis published in January by the University of Northern Colorado’s Social Research Lab.

An OnlyFans spokesperson told McClatchy News on May 7 that adults are not able to “post images of minors on OnlyFans.”

“All creators undergo extensive age and identification checks before they are allowed to upload content to the platform. This means we know the identity of everyone on the platform,” the spokesperson said.

After appearing for her initial hearing, Pollard-Gilliam is due back in court for arraignment on May 14, according to court records.

Court records show Gilliam and Pollard-Gilliam had not been charged as of May 7.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, sex trafficking is a form of human trafficking, a “crime of exploitation.” Human traffickers profit from their victims by forcing them to perform sexual acts or work.

Authorities say children in the welfare or juvenile justice systems, such as foster care, are most at risk of human trafficking in the United States. – The Charlotte Observer/Tribune News Service