Break the Chain
Hidden in plain sight: Dunnings arrest brings light to human trafficking in Ingham County
|
By Ally Hamzey, Erica Marra, and Katie Dudlets
The Meridian Times Staff Reporters
In the aftermath of the arrest of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III, Ingham County residents are left acknowledging the presence of human trafficking within their community. Mason resident Denise Maurer said the Dunnings arrest put the issue of human trafficking in perspective. “I think we just want human trafficking to go away and to not think that could be really happening in the United States, that our own people are trafficking our own people,“ Maurer said. “But I know now that it’s happening here.”
A state-local-federal investigation revealed that Dunnings allegedly engaged in commercial sex hundreds of times with multiple women over the course of five years. Dunnings is facing 10 counts of engaging in the services of prostitution, one count of prostitution/pandering and four counts of willful neglect of duty in the counties of Ingham, Clinton and Ionia as a result of this investigation.