MIAMI – Miami-Dade prosecutors announced Thursday that they arrested a man and woman in a human trafficking investigation they said played out like a spy movie script.
The investigation all started with a tip to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office human trafficking hotline, authorities said.
Falon Elizabeth Dunkelberger, 25, of Hollywood, is accused of luring a woman from a small town in Oklahoma with “promises of glamor.” Instead, prosecutors said she would be forced into prostitution.
Dimitri David Lubin, 23, of Fort Lauderdale, was described by authorities as a “pimp” who’s accused of holding the victim’s 1-year-old child hostage.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said the 21-year-old victim had fallen on hard times after leaving an abusive relationship. Dunkelberger met her online, she said, and lured her and her young son to South Florida under false pretenses.
Dunkelberger “was the one who did the contacting,” Fernandez Rundle said.
An arrest report states Dunkelberger “befriended (the victim) and told her to come to Miami, where men will pay you to just be a pretty girl to ride in their car.”
“(She) bought her a one-way ticket and told the victim she could stay with her and, upon arrival, she was taken to a luxurious apartment,” Fernandez Rundle said. “The next day Dunkelberger took the victim on a shopping spree, gave her a makeover...then she said she sometimes had to have sex with men for money. She said she didn’t want to.”
Three days after coming to South Florida, Fernandez Rundle said Dunkelberger had arranged a “threesome” involving her, the victim and a male client at the Rodeway Inn at 5959 SW 71st St. in South Miami. The purported client, Fernandez Rundle said, was actually an undercover police officer.
Lubin had driven them to the hotel and kept the baby in the car, authorities said; the victim asked for help getting her son back.
Local authorities, in concert with the U.S. Secret Service, eventually rescued the child after having the victim set up a meeting with Lubin; that came amid hours of back-and-forth between the two as she demanded her child back., the arrest report states.
Fernandez Rundle described it as a “life-or-death situation.”
Lubin, a Haitian national, was being held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on charges of human trafficking, kidnapping, false imprisonment of a child and deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution.
Dunkelberger was being held without bond for charges of human trafficking, deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution and engaging in prostitution.
If you suspect human trafficking in Miami-Dade County, authorities urge you to call the SAO’s hotline at 305-349-7867.
Editor’s note: The original version of this article misstated Dunkelberger’s bond amount based on jail records. She was not given bond and the article has been corrected to reflect that.