Suspected pimp arrested at downtown Las Vegas casino

Kenneth George, 40, was transferred from the Binion’s security office to Metropolitan Police Department officers who took him into custody on suspicion of sex trafficking an adult, battery and pandering.

George, a registered sex offender convicted of pandering in using a 13-year-old girl as a prostitute in 2005, was housed Tuesday in the Clark County Detention Center on $20,000 bail, court records show.

George, who has three previous arrests for suspected pandering, entered Binion’s at 128 Fremont St. shortly before 7 a.m. to follow a woman, whose name was redacted from a police report, police said.

The woman told officers that George was her “ex-pimp” and that although she stopped working for him in 2019, he had been “constantly harassing her on basically a monthly basis” to return to him, according to a police arrest report.

She admitted that “she was conducting prostitution activity” on Fremont Street that morning when she saw George, whom she said two weeks earlier insisted she work for him and “threatened to ‘knock her out’ if she continued to refuse,” police said in the report.

The woman went into Binion’s, sat down at a bar and began to talk with a friend when George approached and started to yell at her about how she was fouling up his pimping and that she needed to “give him a ride and some money,” officers said.

He continued to yell at her, police said. “He told her if she continued to ‘play with me, I’ll knock you out. I know you’re scared of me,’ ” officers wrote in the report.

According to police, the woman said George “tried to grab her purse to take money out because she told him she had a ‘date’ earlier in the night and he wanted to get the money out of her purse.”

When she tried to take her purse back “at some point he slapped her in the face,” and “continued yelling at her about ‘pimpin,’ ” police said. He tried to leave, but Binion’s security, after viewing the scene on video surveillance, detained George, police said.

A police officer watched the casino’s video and based “on the fact (the woman) stated George has been continuing to try and recruit her to engage in prostitution and the fact he tried to take her purse and slapped her,” he was booked on suspicion of sex trafficking of an adult, as well as pandering and battery, the report said.

George has a history of 28 arrests on suspicion of felony and misdemeanor crimes going back to 2002, although many were dismissed or rejected for prosecution by the Clark County district attorney’s office, according to Justice Court records.

Many cases were dismissed or rejected for prosecution by the District Attorney’s office, including alleged possession of a stolen vehicle, first degree kidnapping, child abuse/endangerment, violation of sexual registration laws, five counts of prohibited acts by a sex offender and four counts of being a fugitive, according to Justice Court records.

In the 2005 conviction for pandering of a child and living with a prostitute, a District Court judge imposed concurrent minimum sentences of 18 months and 12 months, respectively, in state prison.

In 2014, in a plea deal, George admitted guilt to a charge of larceny and was sentenced to one to four years in prison, according to court documents.

He also has a number of active cases in court, facing charges of pandering, failing to obey sex offender laws, obtaining a credit card without the holder’s consent, resisting arrest, DUI, reckless driving and driving with a revoked license, based on court records.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on Twitter.