Announced yesterday, undercover investigators from the State’s Attorney’s Human Trafficking Initiative, the Schiller Park Police Department and the Illinois State Police were able to arrest and charge three suburban men with human trafficking for allegedly operating a prostitution ring in which vulnerable women were forced into a life of drug addiction, violence and prostitution.
Keith Williams, 52, of Schiller Park, street name “Shampoo,” was charged with Involuntary Servitude, a Class X Felony punishable by up to 30 years, as well as Trafficking In Persons, a Class One Felony. He appeared in bond court yesterday at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building in Chicago where his bond was set at $650,000. Also charged was Roman Kurek, 49, and Sylvia Topolewski, 37, who both lived with Williams at the same address. Kurek has also been charged with Promoting Prostitution and Topolewski with Prostitution. Both were charged with Involuntary Servitude and Trafficking in Persons and had their bonds set at $350,000 each.
According to prosecutors, Williams targeted and recruited vulnerable women, most of whom he met on the street who were poor or homeless. He then brought the victims to live at the Schiller Park residence, introduced to drugs and forced to engage in prostitution on a daily basis, either on the street or through meetings arranged on the Internet or by telephone. Kurek was responsible for driving the women to and from the Schiller Park residence to other locations for sex-trafficking. Topolewski monitored the women for Williams, providing them with heroin and crack cocaine on a “silver platter,” two to three times every day in order to sustain their addictions under the control of the defendant.
The women were routinely beaten and randomly assaulted by Williams, who would punish them for so-called “bad behavior” with severe beatings or by withholding food or drugs. According to prosecutors, in some cases Williams handcuffed the women who upset him or locked them in a room in the building where he would beat them, urinate on them and leave them for days without food as they became increasingly “dope sick” from drug withdrawal.
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