Tennessee sex offender, girlfriend drugged, ‘pimped’ woman in Miami Beach

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A couple from Tennessee faced multiple felony charges in South Florida after police arrested them over the weekend, having accused them of forcing a woman into sex trafficking in a Miami Beach hotel.

According to arrest reports from the Miami Beach Police Department, officers started looking for the pair on Aug. 11, when the 26-year-old victim called police and told them she was “afraid for her life.”

One of the suspects, Kionn Rodgers, has a track record of promoting prostitution: he’s on the Volunteer State’s sex offender registry because of two prior convictions. He, along with his girlfriend, Amelia Hegwood, are from Millington, a suburb of Memphis.

Police arrested the pair Sunday on charges of human trafficking, deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution and unlawful use of a communications device. Rodgers faced an additional felony charge.

Police said officers couldn’t locate the victim at the hotel she was staying at, the name and address of which were redacted from the reports. They later found her at the Shell gas station at 337 71st St. on North Beach, not wearing any shoes and telling police she was afraid to go back, one of the reports states.

Police said she told officers that “she was getting pimped out for sex” and that Rodgers, 27, threatened to beat her because she was “not making enough money.”

According to one of the reports, the woman ended up in Miami Beach because of her personal relationship with Hegwood: she’s known the 24-year-old since she was 12.

The woman told police that she had recently lost her job in North Carolina and contacted Hegwood looking for work.

Police said Hegwood “explained to the victim if she just came to Miami,” she and Rodgers “would take care of her and the victim could make money.”

The pair bought the woman tickets on a Spirit Airlines flight from North Carolina to Orlando, picked her up in a Mercedes-Benz, then drove her to Miami Beach, according to police, where the couple told her she would have to “sleep with people to make money.”

Police said Hegwood then posted the victim’s photo and details on websites known for prostitution and would set up encounters, telling her how much money to collect and which sex acts to perform.

Authorities said Rodgers set a quota for the victim: she’d have to bring in at least $100 per day. Rodgers kept all the money, they said.

According to police, the pair also gave the woman drugs in what officers described as a means of keeping her compliant.

“The victim was only allowed to sleep in small increments because the couple had her do cocaine to keep her awake,” a detective wrote in one of the reports. “The victim said she thinks the couple was trying to get her hooked on drugs.”

In addition to cocaine, the woman told police that the pair gave her hydrocodone, an opioid pain reliever.

“Providing and getting victims addicted to narcotics is consistent with human trafficking,” the detective wrote. “This is a common tactic used to have victims dependent on their trafficker.”

The woman said she feared for her life because the pair continued to threaten her, police said. She also told officers that the pair wouldn’t let her go back to North Carolina.

After encountering the woman in August, police said they put out be-on-the-lookout flyers for the pair.

According to the arrest reports, an officer patrolling South Beach on Sunday noticed Rodgers from the flyer and arrested him in the 900 block of Collins Avenue. Police later located Hegwood in the same area.

The pair were taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

According to jail records, Rodgers remained there Monday afternoon on a $39,500 bond and on a magistrate hold for a warrant case. Hegwood was no longer listed as an inmate Monday.