[B]URLINGTON — Timothy Galloway, 46, of Burlington, was arrested this week on charges that he coerced young drug-dependent women into sex for his personal gain.
Police say Galloway was arrested without incident in Massachusetts on Tuesday and brought back to Vermont. He was arraigned on six felony charges, each of which carries a possible sentence of life in prison and a fine of up to $500,000. He is currently jailed at Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans for lack of $75,000 bail.
In an affidavit seeking an arrest warrant for Galloway, Burlington Police Detective Jeffrey Beerworth describes how Galloway allegedly used drugs — either providing or withholding them — threats and violence to coerce six women as young as 19 into prostitution. Evidence presented in the affidavit goes back to May 2014.
The affidavit says he used the money that women were paid for sex to finance his own drug habit and that he would also coerce women into having sex with him while they were visiting or living with him at his home in the Farrington mobile home park.
Though the women used other drugs, they were all primarily addicted to opiates, according to the affidavit. In interviews with detectives and prosecutors, the women repeatedly referred to prostituting themselves in order to “get well,” meaning high enough to avoid becoming dope sick and going into withdrawal.
Exploiting young women’s drug dependency for profit is an increasingly common practice, according to law enforcement, and the U.S. attorney’s office has said such activity can facilitate the flow of drugs into Vermont.
Lt. Detective Shawn Burke of the Burlington police said officers have seen sex-for-drugs coercion cases increase in the last 18 months, which he attributes to high levels of opiate addiction in the region.
“In this case, these young women are agreeing to have sex with multiple strangers in any given day to feed their habit,” he said.
“I’ve done this job for 23 years. Any time I’ve interviewed an opiate-addicted person they talk about the first time they got high, and the rest of their addicted lives they’re chasing that first high,” Burke said.
“It scares me,” the veteran officer said. “Opiates scare me.”
One of the women told police she was going out on five to eight “calls” — meeting strangers for sex — per day. She said at the time she was using 50 to 60 bags, or single doses of heroin, per day. A bundle, or 10 bags, cost $100, she told police.
Sometimes Galloway would give young women drugs on credit and later coerce them into prostitution to pay off their debt, according to the affidavit.
The women were taken to have sex with men in Burlington and in smaller towns like Hinesburg and Morrisville, according to the affidavit.
One woman told police that young women prostituting themselves for drugs was “a big thing in Burlington” and that the classifieds website Backpage.com, which Galloway allegedly used, consisted of “a lot of young girls selling (their bodies) online to people they don’t know.”
Another woman told police Galloway took her to Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut, because they would make more money from prostitution there.
Galloway allegedly would drive the women to their “dates” and would typically keep most of the money. In exchange he let the women stay at his home and would provide them with drugs, they told police. Often he would have friends with drugs visit him, and they would trade drugs for sex with the women, according to the affidavit.
Galloway told police he was trying to help some of the young women he’s accused of pressing into prostitution. He said he had twice revived one of the women from overdosing on heroin and sought to help her enter rehab. He denied giving them drugs or using the classifieds website to set up dates for them.
One woman did tell police that Galloway had tried to get her to take the treatment drug Suboxone and to enter the rehab center Maple Leaf Place, according to the affidavit.
The women said Galloway would threaten violence if they refused to prostitute themselves or tried to keep the money they made or acted in ways he found disrespectful.
On one occasion Galloway allegedly choked one woman who was staying with him, pinning her against the wall, because “she would not give him the money she had made,” another of the women told police.
Several of the women said Galloway would keep guns in the house and had threatened violence with them, though as the affidavit said one woman put it to police, “he never put (a gun) to her head or ‘anything like that.’” Burke said no firearms were recovered from Galloway’s trailer when police searched it.
Several of the women told detectives that Galloway smoked crack cocaine and later started using methamphetamine. His behavior became more violent and erratic when he started using meth, according to one woman, who described him as “looney” when he was on the drug.
Burke said the investigation is ongoing and it’s possible more people will face charges. Several of the women said they had faced similar abuse at the hands of a sex trafficker in the Burlington area who goes by the name “Kapone,” according to the affidavit.
Many of the women in this case have pending charges in unrelated matters, Burke said. At least one woman was given immunity in exchange for cooperating in the Galloway investigation, according to the affidavit.
Galloway is due back in court for a status conference Sept. 23.
