A Michigan man has been charged with luring an Italian woman to his home under false pretenses of being an au pair then putting her on a plane back to Italy after sexually assaulting her for hours.
Arisknight A. Winfree is also accused of picking up a 17-year-old high school student and taking her back to his home to have sex, which he photographed.
According to an FBI probable cause affidavit filed earlier this week, the Italian woman agreed to come to the United States to assist Winfree and his niece with housework and childcare, MLive.com reports. Winfree allegedly told the woman his name was Stryker and said he would “cover all your expenses when you come,” the outlet said.
The 18-year-old victim arrived in East Lansing shortly after 9 a.m. on October 12, she said in her complaint. She noticed nothing odd, except that the windows of “Stryker’s” home were covered in newspapers. The following morning, she said she woke up and began cleaning the house, noting that Winfree had “installed cameras all around his house,” according to the complaint.
Later, while she was showering, she said Winfree came into her room and asked her to come to his room, WLNS reported. When she did, he began touching her inappropriately then grabbed her from behind and handcuffed her wrists and tied her legs with towels. For hours, she said, he raped her, molested her with sex toys, and photographed her.
“I felt like I was dying,” she wrote in her complaint, MLive.com said. “He put his hand on my nose and mouth and then placed a gag ball in my mouth.”
Winfree filmed her while demanding she tell the camera she consented to sexual acts, she said.
He allegedly left her, still handcuffed, in a locked room until about 2 a.m. the next morning, when he drove her to a bus stop and sent her back to the Detroit airport. She arrived back in Italy on October 15 and filed a complaint with the East Lansing Police on November 29. The woman said she never saw evidence of a child at the home, WILX reported.
The FBI affidavit also details a complaint from a Kansas woman Winfree met an AuPair.com, the same website where he procured the Italian woman. The 18-year-old called her sister on September 16 and said the man who hired her was making her “nervous.” The sister called East Lansing police, who called the 18-year-old and went to Winfree’s address, MLive reported. The teen told police she’d been hired to work as an au pair and watch Winfree’s niece, although, she also said, it appeared no children lived at the house. And now, she said, he was asking for a massage.
The woman also said she’d seen several “machine guns” at the house. It’s not clear if the complaint resulted in an arrest, but the FBI executed a search warrant at Winfree’s home on December 12, WLNS said, and seized 10 firearms, nearly 80 grams of cocaine in three separate bags, a coffee grinder with suspected cocaine residue in it, a digital scale, and sex toys, the complaint said.
They also found, on electronic devices they seized, data related to the November 30 report about the 17-year-old high school girl, including photographs of them having sex. The girl told investigators the sex was consensual, but state law considers sexual images of children under 18 to be child pornography. The girl said she met Winfree online and knew hims as “Hunter.”
Investigators also found a video of Winfree’s encounter with the Italian woman on his cell phone and messages indicating he may have been soliciting pornographic images from other underage teens.
Winfree has been charged with kidnapping and sexual exploitation of a child.
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[Featured image: Arisknight Winfree/FBI]
