Man Arrested After Allegedly Allowing Two Women to Use His Apartment for Prostitution

(KNSI) — A 55-year-old from St. Cloud is behind bars after allegedly allowing two women to use his apartment for prostitution.

According to the criminal complaint, in December of 2021, the Central Minnesota Human Trafficking Task Force opened an investigation into John Elrod 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 but said they needed some time.

Investigators were watching the property and said there were “many individuals in the parking lot,” so they sent a text message to the person they were communicating with who said the people would leave, but they needed 45 more minutes. The criminal complaint says police watched a man get out of a car and enter the apartment, emerging 20 minutes later. Investigators asked them what they were doing and allegedly admitted they had just been with a prostitute.

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 figured out 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.

Elrod is now charged with promoting prostitution and receiving profits from prostitution, which are both felonies.

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