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POLICE: 7 arrested after keeping teens as 'sex slaves'

Officials believe the gaming app Discord played a role in luring at least one of the boys to St. Petersburg.
Credit: St. Petersburg Police Department

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — Seven people have been arrested for allegedly holding two teenage boys as sex slaves in Florida for more than a year.

According to the St. Petersburg Police Department, the arrests were made following an eight-month long human trafficking investigation. The charges were announced during a press conference on Monday.

Credit: St. Petersburg Police Department

The investigation began on May 9, 2018, when a Louisiana law enforcement agency contacted the SPPD with information that a missing 17-year-old boy from Louisiana was at a mobile home 24th Street North in St. Petersburg.

Investigators believe the victim was lured through Discord, an online gaming app that allows users to communicate directly with each other. Officials say they used it to coordinate picking the teen up and driving him to St. Petersburg.

When officers arrived at the mobile home, they found the missing teen and discovered another 16-year-old boy, living in the same trailer along with four adults identified as; Mark Earl Dennis, Andrew Barry Dennis, Curtis Lee Gruwell and Michael Wayne Schwartz. Mark Dennis claimed to be the 16-year-old boy’s biological father, but he had no documentation and both teens were removed from the home.

Further investigation revealed Mark Dennis was not the teen's dad. The 16- year-old was actually missing from Marion County, Florida. Eleven months earlier, a family acquaintance, identified as Eleanor Faye McGlamory, befriended the boy and introduced him to Mark Dennis and Andrew Dennis, according to the SPPD. In May 2017, the teen’s mother found a note from her son saying not to look for him.

While the teen, who was 15-years-old at the time, was lured with the promise of a better life, instead he was moved into a filthy trailer and lived with four men, law enforcement says. For the next year, he was introduced to sadomasochism and used as a sex slave by Mark and Andrew Dennis, Curtis Gruwell, Schwartz, and their associates Michael Ray Blasdel and J.R. Gauthier. He did not attend school or receive medical care.

Police say the victim is receiving specialized trauma-informed care designed for victims of human trafficking and is thriving.

After police made contact in May 2018, Mark and Andrew Dennis, Curtis Gruwell and Michael Schwartz moved from St. Petersburg to Lehigh Acres. With the assistance of the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the SPPD detectives took the suspects into custody.

CHARGES

  • Mark Earl Dennis, 52
    Conspiracy to commit human trafficking
    Interference with custody
    Sexual battery (with a child under the age of 16)
  • Andrew Barry Dennis, 45
    Conspiracy to commit human trafficking
    Interference with custody
    Sexual battery (with a child under the age of 16)
  • Curtis Lee Gruwell, 34
    Conspiracy to commit human trafficking
    Interference with custody
  • Michael Wayne Schwartz, 52
    Conspiracy to commit human trafficking
    Interference with custody
  • Michael Ray Blasdel, 36
    Conspiracy to commit human trafficking
    Interference with custody
    Transmission of material harmful to minors to a minor
    2X Sexual battery (with a child under the age of 16)
  • J.R. Gauthier, 29
    Conspiracy to commit human trafficking
    Interference with custody
    Sexual battery (with a child under the age of 16
  • Eleanor Faye McGlamory, 56
    Conspiracy to commit human trafficking
    Interference with custody

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