Kenika Danielle Leach, 33, a resident of Baltimore was charged by Attorney General Anthony G. Brown. She faces 135 counts of running a human trafficking ring. An indictment was handed down by a grand jury in Washington County after the Attorney General’s Organized Crime Unit led a two-year probe into the case.
Leach is accused of taking at least 11 women from Hagerstown and taking them to hotels across Maryland to do sexual acts for money. Among the charges against her are running a criminal group and planning to traffic people by force, fear, coercion, or fraud.
In December 2021, hospital workers told Baltimore Police that Leach had trafficked a patient. This was the start of the investigation. The girl said that she was taken from Hagerstown to the Baltimore area to do illegal things, and that Leach used drugs to pay her.
Homeland Security Investigations and the Maryland State Police were both part of the multi-agency probe. Cell phone, social media, and financial records were used as main sources of evidence. Investigators found that Leach took advantage of the victims’ drug problems by controlling their access to drugs in order to force them to work as slaves, often getting paid through the Cash App.
Leach is also said to have used physical violence and threats to control his victims. For example, he is said to have told them to “get on the wall” to beat them without hurting their looks.
The next time Leach will be in court is on June 24, 2024, in Washington County Circuit Court. Attorney General Brown talked about the mental and physical harm done to the victims and reaffirmed his promise to bring these crimes to justice to help keep the community safe and help victims heal.
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