Raleigh woman linked to alleged prostitution of 12-year-old girl

A Raleigh woman faces multiple charges and is being held on $1 million bond linked to alleged prostitution of a child.

Brieania Pinnock, 21, has a history of charges for sexually exploiting a minor or promoting prostitution.

“A lot of times we see online advertising, someone will get a juvenile or an adult, advertise them online, keep them in a lower budget hotel, sometimes bringing in 10, 15, 20 [or] 25 [people] in to bring in their service, a forced service,” said Assistant District Attorney Katherine Pomeroy.

Warrants allege Pinnock took nude pictures of a 12-year-old girl with an advertisement for sex.

In June, Pinnock was charged with three counts of second-degree sex exploitation of a minor. She was indicted on those crimes and promoting prostitution of a minor.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that the investigation which led to that arrest recently led them to add the charge of human trafficking of a minor.

“It requires the child is a victim of human trafficking that is engaging in services, usually for money,” said Assistant District Attorney Melanie Shekita.

Shekita explained the types of situations the district attorney’s office typically sees when it comes to human trafficking.

“A lot of [girls] are runaways coming from bad situations at home and feel like they have control over this, but they don’t,” Shekita said.

On Tuesday, Pinnock appeared hunched over in a court monitor.

The prosecutors explained that Pinnock’s first-degree charges come from creating explicit content and distributing it. The second-degree charge is for distributing or downloading explicit content from the internet.

Pinnock is awaiting trial on the charges she was indicted on. She is due back in court on Oct. 11.

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“It is happening here [as] it is happening everywhere,” Pomeroy said of human trafficking. “It’s not just a Wake County thing.”

Pomeroy also said many youth victims are dealing with drug addictions, which she said are used to keep them in the sex trade.

“Hidden in plain sight [is] exactly part of the problem with human trafficking,” Pomeroy said. “People don’t recognize [it].

“It can happen in front of you, [and] you don’t realize that what you are seeing is commercial sex trade but forced.”