Maine man gets prison in Dover sex trafficking case

Leo Grondin (Police photo)

PORTLAND, Maine - A Biddeford man who pimped a woman in her 50s for prostitution and threatened her with a claw hammer if she didn't cooperate was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison Friday.

Leo Grondin, 49, was sentenced by Chief Judge Nancy Torresen to 51 months in prison and five years of supervised release for transporting an individual in interstate commerce with the intent that she engage in prostitution. Grondin pleaded guilty in September.

Court records reveal that on July 15, 2015, Grondin drove the woman from southern Maine to Dover, N.H., where the woman performed sexual services for clients for money.

On July 17, law enforcement officers located an online advertisement for escort services that listed a contact phone number associated with Grondin and a location in Dover. Law enforcement agents were able to track Grondin and the woman to the Comfort Inn, where Grondin was arrested on a pending state warrant.

The defendant was subject to an enhanced sentence because Torresen found that he coerced the woman into the prostitution activity. Torresen calling the defendant's conduct "reprehensible."

The case was first investigated by a Biddeford police officer assigned to a federal Homeland Security task force to investigate human trafficking. The officer found Grondin's phone number in numerous online advertisements for commercial sex and escort services, according to court documents.

Police got a break in the investigation on July 9 when the daughter of the woman called the Biddeford Police Department to share what she had discovered about her mother, court records indicated.

"(The daughter) reported that her mother had recently requested her assistance in installing an application on her cellphone. In the process of installing the application on (her mother's) phone, (the daughter) discovered email conversations regarding prostitution, websites for escort services and ads promising 'in-home specials for prostitution' that included (her mother's) and Grondin's home address. Based on the emails, (the daughter) believed that (her mother) was both helping Grondin run a prostitution ring and engaging in prostitution herself," the affidavit reads. "After she confronted (her mother) about the emails and their content, (her mother) admitted to her that Leo Grondin was prostituting her and other women, and that Grondin was mean to her if she did not engage in prostitution," including threats of using a claw hammer on her, court records state.

The daughter also shared with police a handwritten contract she had discovered at her mother's house, between Grondin and her mother. In the contract, her mother promised not to engage in prostitution without Grondin and Grondin promised not to pimp without her mother. Other documents the daughter shared included handwritten drafts of prostitution advertisements with Grondin's phone number, according to court records.

This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations Human Trafficking Task Force, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Biddeford and Dover, New Hampshire Police Departments.