A Queens man has been indicted for allegedly forcing women into prostitution on a strip of Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn — and federal prosecutors described him as a psychotically violent pimp who once took a baseball bat to a sex worker because he wanted to “leave a stain on her brain.”
Douglas Welch, a 40-year-old who goes by the nickname of “Paradise,” allegedly ran a sex-trafficking ring and threatened victims with savage violence if they refused to work as prostitutes, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Unfortunately, they weren’t idle threats.
In the court papers, prosecutors laid out in excruciating detail the list of beatings Welch allegedly doled out — including separate instances when he knocked three teeth out of a woman’s mouth, body-slammed another when she told off another pimp and took a bat to one poor woman who said she didn’t want to work that night.
In a phone call recorded by investigators, Welch allegedly said that he had “cracked her with a bat and all that.”
“So you know, I ain’t hit a home run with that motherf–king bat, but you know … I definitely touched her with that motherf–ker,” Welch allegedly said, adding that he wanted to “leave a stain on her brain.”
The “brazen, open-air commercial sex market” that Welch allegedly ran on the strip known as “Penn Track” was dangerous, unacceptable and harmful to the women caught in a cycle of abuse, Breon Peace, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a press release.
“Welch has trafficked multiple women for his own financial benefit while boasting about the cruel and brutal violence he has inflicted on the vulnerable victims,” Peace said. “Today’s indictment will hold the defendant accountable in a federal courtroom for his exploitative crimes.”
Welch also allegedly promoted the prostitution of other women, and brought some of them with him to the NFL Pro Bowl in February 2022 to have them work the streets.
Federal prosecutors also said that Welch — who has a lengthy criminal history, and once served a year in the slammer for having a fully-loaded AK-47 assault rifle — conspired to kill a woman who another pimp thought was working with the cops.
The twisted plan never came to fruition, however.
Prosecutors have charged Welch with sex trafficking, interstate prostitution, sex trafficking conspiracy and promotion of prostitution.
He faces up to life in prison for his alleged crimes, which prosecutors say happened between the summer of 2021 and January 2023.
Welch has been remanded to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
