By Rummana Hussain and Kim Janssen
Chicago Sun Times
CHICAGO — Clinton Danner’s wife told her dad last year that the “nice guy” she had married had been pimping her for sex.
After hearing that, the father immediately brought her to the family’s home in suburban Minneapolis.
But the young woman, who first became enamored with Danner at church when she was 17, returned to him in a few months. And soon, Danner, 32, was pimping her to strangers across state lines through the Craigslist Web site, authorities said.
Danner, of Rockford, Minn., was arrested Sunday at a downtown Chicago Holiday Inn, where he drove to confront his wife over the lack of money she had been making, Cook County Sheriff’s Police said. He was charged with felony pandering. He allegedly flew his wife here for the weekend, but she secretly called the Polaris Project’s national sex-trafficking hotline, police said.
He had been pimping his wife out since she became pregnant four years ago, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Erin Antonietti said Wednesday. Danner allegedly would threaten to take away her child if she didn’t sell her body. Danner often would travel with his wife and their 3-year-old daughter, living out of a van while his spouse exchanged sex for money, Antonietti said. Judge Donald Panarese ordered Danner held on $150,000 bail Wednesday, a day before his fourth wedding anniversary.
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