GLENDALE, AZ — Police say there was drug dealing, money laundering, and child sex trafficking all happening inside one Glendale home.
Tennessee Jackson is now charged with 18 felonies, nearly half of them are child sex trafficking charges. She also is charged with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Police say she recruited teen girls and forced some of them to pose naked on Instagram.
The initial arrest took place on January 11. The DPS SWAT team raided Jackson’s Glendale home for drugs. Investigators wrote that they had done multiple undercover buys in the month leading up to the bust.
“We saw the police and we hear when they said ‘Come out with your hands up,'” said one neighbor.
Inside the home police arrested Tennessee Jackson, 37, and her husband Donald Jackson. Both for multiple drug charges and one count of child sex trafficking.
Neighbors say the SWAT team brought out more than eight people from the home, many of them teen girls.
“It makes me sick. It makes me want to put the house up for sale,” said the neighbor.
Court documents accuse Jackson of having girls sell the weed, cocaine, Percocet, and ecstasy.
One 17-year-old victim told detectives “she was recruited by Jackson when she had nowhere to live.“
Police say multiple girls were forced to take nude photos for social media.
A teen even told police girls were taken by Jackson to a West Virginia strip club where they danced. All the money they made was then given to Jackson. Police found more than $30,000 in cash in the house.
“It was right here, right next door to us and we had no clue,” said the neighbor, shocked she lived so close to alleged sex trafficking.
Police wrote that in Jackson’s bedroom they found a notebook that was titled “passwords for the [girls]” and inside it contained the snapchat, Instagram, email accounts, and money transfer site login and passwords.
According to the state’s sex trafficking prevention website, one out of every three runaway teens will be lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home.
“A trafficker is very creative, they are going to find that child wherever they are,” said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, an Associate Professor with ASU’s School of Social Work.
One of the victims told detectives “…she did not want to be a part of stripping, nude photos or drug sales, but felt she had no other choice…”
For more information about the signs of sex trafficking and how to prevent and stop it, check out the state website .
