With the help of tourist, alleged pimp indicted after Strip arrest

By Ana Ley

Wednesday, March 26, 2014 | 6:30 p.m.

A concerned tourist and a series of text messages led Metro Police to a man who was allegedly pimping a runaway teenager on the Las Vegas Strip last month.

A tourist from Ireland told police he was at a New York-New York bar on Feb. 5 when a man approached him and offered to arrange a session with a prostitute, according to an arrest report released today.

Moments later, officers approached the tourist and the girl, 17, at the MGM Grand casino and arrested the girl for being a minor in a gaming establishment. She was taken to the Clark County Juvenile Jail, where she gave detectives permission to look through content on her Samsung cellphone.

Detectives found a series of threatening texts from a number registered to Marquis Quone Davis, 34, of North Las Vegas.

A records search revealed Davis had previously been arrested in Las Vegas for attempted murder, drug possession, intimidating public officers, kidnapping and robbery. He was also arrested in Colorado in 2010 for kidnapping and sexual assault after a 28-year-old woman accused him of trying to get her to work as a prostitute for him.

Police found Davis on Feb. 20 at the Wild Wild West casino, where he’d reportedly been staying with the runaway teenager. He denied brokering a prostitution deal between the tourist and the girl, though he admitted to sending the series of texts on Feb. 5.

In one of the messages, Davis told the girl, “I get the money for the attorney,” according to the incident report.

The teen eventually admitted to working as a prostitute for Davis, giving him $2,000 in profits from various sexual acts she performed under his direction over the course of a week. She had met him while staying at a Motel 6 on Dean Martin Drive, and knew him only as “Twilight” before her arrest.

The girl said the tourist offered to give her $100 so she wouldn’t get in trouble with Davis, but that he did not intend to have sex with her.

Davis was indicted Wednesday on felony charges that include sex trafficking of a child under 18; first-degree kidnapping; living from the earnings of a prostitute; and child abuse, neglect or endangerment.