DETROIT – A father and son have been sentenced for using crack cocaine, heroin and threats of violence to force women with addictions to go on sex dates as part of the duo’s drug and prostitution house in Detroit.
Eligah Goodmon, 68, and his son, Erskin Bernard Perryman, 49, both of Detroit, were arrested in February 2020, but their sentencing dates were delayed due to the COVID pandemic, according to authorities.
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They pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking using force and coercion, as well as firearm- and drug-related offenses, U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison said.
Goodmon was sentenced Friday (Jan. 21) to 111 months in federal prison. Perryman was sentenced in March 2021 to 180 months in federal prison.
How operation worked
Court records show Goodmon and Perryman ran the drug and prostitution house on Hazelwood Street in Detroit.
Officials said Goodmon lived in the house, while Perryman would show up every day to provide crack cocaine and heroin to drug-addicted women who also lived there.
“These defendants treated their victims like a commodity,” Ison said. “They targeted vulnerable women and exploited them for their own profit and fueled their drug addictions by providing them with drugs.”
The women at the home would buy drugs from Perryman by performing commercial sex dates, according to authorities.
If the women didn’t comply with Perryman’s demands, the repercussions were violent, court records show.
“These defendants exploited their victims in the worst way,” said Josh Hauxhurst, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office. “By plying their victims with drugs, forcing them to engage in commercial sex and subjecting them to violence if they refused, the defendants took away the freedom and dignity to which these women are entitled.”
Goodmon would collect money from the commercial sex dates, administer the drugs to the women and monitor their drug usage, authorities said.
“We hope that (this) sentence offers these victims a sense of justice and closure and sends the message that we will not tolerate sex trafficking in our communities,” Ison said.
Special agents from the FBI investigated this case.
“The FBI remains committed to working on behalf of victims across the state to hold traffickers responsible for their crimes,” Hauxhurst said.
