Feb. 14--A Roselle man already serving prison time for sex abuse of minors has been charged in federal court with sex trafficking of another girl, and is suspected of forcing several others into prostitution, prosecutors said.
Allen C. Iroegbulem, 24, forced the 16-year-old girl and several other young girls into prostitution, physically abusing and drugging them, according to the federal complaint against him. Iroegbulem already is serving a sentence for sexual abuse of minors in the Woodstock area in 2013, and could be sentenced to life in prison if he is found guilty of the federal crime, according to prosecutors and court records.
The girl told investigators "she performed the commercial sex acts because ... she was afraid he would physically harm her if she refused," according to the complaint
In a court hearing Friday, Iroegbulem, scheduled to be released from state prison later this month, was ordered held in federal custody pending a detention hearing, according to prosecutors and court records.
Iroegbulem's prostitution of minors ended after Schaumburg police were called to a hotel in that northwest suburb when an employee found a 15-year-old girl passed out in a room Iroegbulem had rented, according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent in the case. The girl was picked up by a guardian, but police ran into Iroegbulem and the 16-year-old, returning to the same room where the younger girl was found.
Iroegbulem was released by Schaumburg police, but taken back into custody in McHenry County because his arrest on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor violated the terms of his bond in the Woodstock case, according to the affidavit and court records.
After interviewing the 16-year-old and other girls is suspected of forcing into prostitution, investigators determined that he had met the older girl through a mutual friend, and started acting as her pimp in December 2013, according to the charges against him. Iroegbulem took girls, including the two found at the Schaumburg hotel, from the Chicago area to Rockford and Wisconsin to have sex with men for money, according to the affidavit.
Iroegbulem would give the girls drugs, including sedatives, cocaine, marijuana and heroin, as well as alcohol, and later bragged to other men who were later interviewed by investigators that he drugged girls and sold sex with them "while they were high or passed out," according to the affidavit. In one instance, in December 2013, Iroegbulem brought the 16-year-old to Rockford after they had been dating for a while, and had her have sex with four men at a party, then took her to a home nearby where she was raped, and forced to have sex with two additional men, according to the affidavit.
Over the next few months, Iroegbulem forced the girl to have sex with often several men at once at various Chicago-area hotels, at a West Side home and in Wisconsin, according to the complaint. Iroegbulem also gave drugs to another 15-year-old in hotel rooms, and arranged for men to have sex with her while she was drugged, according to the complaint.
The FBI and police from Carol Stream, Schaumburg and Woodstock, as well as DuPage and McHenry sheriff's investigators and the McHenry County state's attorney's office worked together in the investigation, according to a release from prosecutors.
