JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It’s a luxury home in a gated country club complete with a sparkling pool and nestled between million-dollar properties that back up to a golf course.
But according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, this glamourous home in Deerwood Country Club was being used as a brothel.
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“It speaks to the point of this could happen anywhere,” Mike Bruno, director of investigations at JSO, told News 6 partner News4Jax. “No neighborhood is immune from it. No one is immune from it.”
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Police had been getting tips from concerned neighbors, as did News4Jax. Research of the address shows Anna Domino, 50, was living there and renting the well-kept property.
A social media account lists her name as “Madame D.” Her group was listed as “The Prostate Queens.” There were numerous online accounts with sexually explicit videos, some that appear to include the high-end home on Hunters Grove Road, which she refers to online as the “fungeon.”
The home showed up on a real estate site with rent listed at $4,000 a month.
Detectives arrested Domino and another woman on Tuesday. Domino is charged with maintaining a home for prostitution, soliciting for prostitution and running an illegal adult business.
The other woman, 41, was also arrested on a charge of soliciting for prostitution. News4Jax is not naming her because investigators said it’s unclear whether she was a victim of human trafficking.
“Obviously, our first goal was to get into the house, figure out what’s going on and make the first round of arrests and to stop this type of activity and protect the girls,” Bruno said.
Bruno noted there were approximately six women living in the home. He said there are concerns an operation like this could be linked to human trafficking.
“They’re at the end of their rope and it is just sad,” he said. “We’ve looked at the human trafficking element. It just doesn’t sit well with me because these women may not even know that they are a victim of that because obviously someone is making money off of what they’re doing.”
Last week, Bruno was part of a joint push for Human Trafficking Awareness Month between the sheriff’s office, FBI and State Attorney’s Office. He said in 27 years of law enforcement, he’s never seen anything like this.
As News4Jax visited the house Thursday, people were seen going in and out of the home. One man said he was hired to help with moving furniture. News4Jax also spotted a man hunched on a tree branch in the front yard, about 15 feet off the ground.
Guests have to be invited go through security and show ID to get into Deerwood. A request for comment from the manager of the homeowners association Thursday afternoon was not immediately returned.
A records request shows JSO officers received nine calls for service at the home over the past two years. Those included a “drug investigation” with a felony arrest, a “dispute” and a “warrant.”
The JSO Vice Unit continues to investigate the case and noted that more arrests are possible.
Domino is being held in jail on $25,000 bond. Her arrest history shows previous charges in Tampa, Tennessee and Georgia for domestic battery, assault, drugs, theft and resisting police.
To report suspected human trafficking, go to humantraffickinghotline.org