ROANOKE, Va. – A Charlottesville man accused of running a prostitution ring across several states, including in Lynchburg, appeared in federal court Thursday.
Brian Turner, 42, is charged with transporting women for the purpose of prostitution. He was arrested after a standoff at his Charlottesville home on Wednesday.
According to court documents, the FBI got tipped off in February of 2023 that Turner was running a prostitution ring. Through interviews with victims, investigators learned Turner had been involved with similar crimes as early as 2019.
Investigators said Turner created a Gmail account in 2022, which he used to post hundreds of commercial sex ads in various cities in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Pennsylvania. They said Turner targets victims who have drug addictions, recruits them, then uses their addictions to control them.
Federal investigators said Turner was operating what they call a “circuit” where he would travel with his victims to various states to traffick them. From June 9 to June 19, the FBI tracked Turner from Lynchburg to Raleigh-Durham, N.C., to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Greensboro, N.C. then back to Charlottesville.
Investigators said Turner would book hotels in each city and post advertisements of his victims on “SkiptheGames,” a commercial sex trafficking website. They said he would then use the mobile payment service Cash App for the transactions.
Investigators cracked the case in July of 2023 when they found Turner’s cell phone at the scene of an altercation in South Carolina. Police said he was armed with a gun when he approached a vehicle with a man and a woman inside and demanded the man get out. Turner then got in the car with the woman and they drove away.
The phone was handed over to the FBI, which confirmed that Turner used his email address to post commercial sex ads online. Authorities also found pictures of victims on his phone, plus messages between Turner and individuals responding to ads.
Turner will appear back in court on Monday. Until then, he’s being held in the Roanoke City Jail.