Two men pleaded guilty today to running a prostitution business that catered to the Hispanic population in northern Virginia over the past three years, according to United States Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for Eastern District of Virginia.
According to court documents, Luis Bonilla-Hernandez, 32, of Sterling, and Eliazar Duran Mota, 23, of Herndon, ran the prostitution business out of their homes. Each week, the defendants would obtain a woman to work in prostitution for a week at a time. The women, known as “Treinteras,” would travel by bus to Union Station in Washington, D.C. from states such as Pennsylvania and New York. The defendants then picked up the women from Union Station and transported them throughout northern Virginia to commercial sex customers. The defendants would advertise the women with business cards purporting to be tied to an automobile shop, and they would tell Hispanic patrons via word of mouth that the cards related to prostitution.
The women performed over a dozen commercial sex transactions each day, charging between $30 and $40 each time. After the prostitution dates, the women were required to turn all of their money over to the defendants, with a portion of the proceeds returned to the women at the end of the week. After a woman worked for a week, the defendants would switch out their “inventory” by obtaining a new woman from Union Station to work in prostitution throughout northern Virginia.
When law enforcement executed a search warrant on Bonilla Hernandez’s house, they recovered evidence of prostitution and over $14,000 in cash. Both defendants pleaded guilty in connection with the prostitution of five adult victims.
Bonilla-Hernandez and Duran Mota pleaded guilty to one count of interstate travel or transportation in aid of a racketeering enterprise. The defendants each face a maximum of five years in prison when sentenced on April 12, 2019. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.