St. Cloud Man Sentenced for Allowing Prostitutes to Use Apartment

(KNSI) – A St. Cloud man has been sentenced to prison for letting two women use his apartment for prostitution.

John Duane Elrod pleaded guilty to one count of promoting prostitution. He was sentenced last Tuesday to more than five years in prison. He was given credit for 134 days in jail. As part of the plea deal, a charge of receiving profits from prostitution was dismissed.

In December of 2021, the Central Minnesota Human Trafficking Task Force started investigating the 55-year-old after an officer responded to an ad posted on a website known for prostitution. Investigators say they began texting with someone, and they agreed to meet for one hour at Elrod’s apartment in exchange for $200.

Search warrants allegedly showed text messages between two women and Elrod setting up meetings with men. The criminal complaint says one of the women paid Elrod $20 each time she used his apartment for prostitution. The other woman said she would pay Elrod with cigarettes to use the apartment but wasn’t sure if she used the word “prostitution.”

Investigators say Elrod gave them a sworn statement saying he knew one of the women was using it for prostitution. When he discovered the other woman was also using it for prostitution, he stopped it. Police showed Elrod the text messages that refuted those claims, and he admitted that he did receive around $100 from one of the women and a few cans of “chew” from the other.

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