The girls admitted to police that they were underage and were soliciting prostitution. They had been giving all of their earnings to the men, who were their pimps, because they had promised to buy them a new pair of shoes, Johnstone said.
“They were taken to the station and will be returned to their parents,” he said.
The men — Christopher Coleman, 23, and Murphy Lettleton, 32, — also were on parole for drug sales, Johnstone said. Police said they also found marijuana inside the hotel room.
The girls told police they had been living with the men since last year after they ran away from their foster homes and group homes, Glendale Police Officer Blanca Razana said.
“They both had similar stories,” she said. “Then they met a guy who was in the business of pimping girls.”
The girls liked partying, and the men provided that lifestyle for them by supplying them with alcohol and drugs, Razana said.
They had sex with the men, and one of the girls was raped and abused, she said.
The girls were forced into prostitution and were told to do whatever was asked of them, Razana said.
They solicited sex for $50 and $60 for other sexual acts, working mostly in the San Fernando Valley, she said. But the girls mostly spent their nights sleeping in a Glendale hotel room.
The men kept the girls’ earnings, but they bought the girls shoes, clothes and video games and provided them a place to sleep, Razana said. So they stayed with the men because they were afraid to be alone and sleeping on the streets.
“They are used to this lifestyle,” she said.
Police officers got mixed emotions from the girls after the men were arrested.
One girl appeared relieved that police had rescued her from the men, but the other girl was angry that the men had been arrested, Razana said.
