A former fugitive is due in federal court in Detroit to face charges he was a member of a violent ring that lured Eastern European women to the United States and forced them to become strippers.
The U.S. attorney's office says Veniamin Gonikman, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Ukraine, was due in court Friday afternoon. He consented to the transfer from New York last month.
Court papers claim Gonikman was using a fake Russian passport while living in Ukraine. Officials there arrested him on Jan. 26 and ordered his deportation.
The Associated Press reported on the case involving Gonikman last year in a lengthy investigation of the exploitation of a U.S. cultural exchange program that provides foreign college students temporary visas to live and work in the United States.
