Mark Burton faces More Pimping Charges

Toronto Sun

Toronto Sun article about Toronto Pimp (August 24, 2011)

TORONTO - A man flagged as a high risk offender is charged with pimping-related offences.

Mark Anthony Burton, 42, faces 14 charges including procuring, living off the avails and exercising control.

He was also under a Section 810 undertaking, which placed conditions on him although he was not facing any charges.

Burton, known on the streets as Playboy and as Ricky Downey, is well known to police.

He has a violent criminal history, including weapons offences, sexual assaults against children and in 1998, he was convicted for being the pimp of a 19-year-old woman.

He was also known to police for procuring a 15-year-old in 1989.

Police consider him dangerous and a high-risk to re-offend.

In 1998, Ontario's highest court heard Burton was part of a three-person pimping crew, led by a then-lawyer, that threatened and abused teen prostitutes.

A Toronto Police special victims detective who didn't want to be named because of undercover work said the suspect apparently is working through a number of motels across the city.

"A lot of it is motels," the officer said.

The detective said police also focused on a storefront that appeared to be massage parlour in the downtown core "but it was just set up to look that way.

"He's not utilizing the strip clubs at all," the detective said.

The victims' ages vary but are young, ranging from teens to early 20s.

"They're absolutely victims," the detective said of the women under his control.

The officer said it doesn't appear the suspect recruits victims from outside the GTA.

"I don't know how he's finding them," the detective said. "I know the girls I've spoken to are generally girls that are in need or vulnerable."

The officer said it's still unclear if he advertises for johns but "he just seems hooked up and connected with various low-end motels around the city and he sets them up in there and gives them direction.

"He doesn't go far from them," the detective said.

"We believe there are other girls out there and they're just too fearful to come forward, I have some girls I'm hoping that will come forward now that he is in custody, but the reluctance there is strictly out of fear for whatever he's threatened them with," the detective said.

The Toronto Police behavioural section took out a special peace bond, the Section 810, for the suspect.

The investigation into the suspect began on Aug. 15 when a woman filed a complaint with 51 Division.

Another woman promised to call police, but she didn't, out of fear, the detective said.

The detective said it's not clear how many women are under the suspect's control.

It baffles me that I haven't heard of this guy and his operation.

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