Man’s charges dropped in sex trafficking, battery case
A man who once had a murder charge against him dismissed in a lethal Las Vegas rapper feud also has had other felony charges against him dismissed in a human trafficking case, online court records show.
Rontu Ary Elam, 42, was arrested 13 months ago on charges of sex trafficking, coercion, domestic battery by strangulation and domestic battery with substantial bodily harm after a woman told police that Elam had beaten her on two occasions in October 2019. The allegations were investigated by the Southern Nevada Human Trafficking Task Force.
In one instance, an arrest report for Elam indicated that a security officer at the Wild Wild West casino on West Tropicana Avenue reported encountering the screaming woman, dressed only in her underwear, who said she was beaten by a man she identified as her “pimp.”
Police contended in the report that they linked Elam to the assault through a phone number listed on pawn shop receipts filled out by Elam in 2015 and 2018. Also in October 2019, Elam was accused of choking and beating the same woman.
But Elam denied the accusations, and Las Vegas Justice Court records show that prosecutors subsequently dismissed the case in summer 2020. The case was dismissed on the same day a preliminary hearing was scheduled to begin.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said on Monday that the case was dismissed because Elam’s accuser was no longer in Nevada, and she was “not cooperative” with prosecutors. Without the woman’s testimony, he said, authorities could not move forward with the case.
Elam was at one point charged with murder by Clark County prosecutors in the June 2005 slaying of Rapper Roosevelt “Mr. Looks” Hines, 30, who was shot to death outside a Las Vegas music studio.
A witness in the case testified in front of a grand jury but then disappeared as authorities were attempting to prosecute the case in Clark County District Court. All charges against Elam were dismissed in 2007.
Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.
