2 charged in Pr. William with prostituting girl

Two people have been charged in Prince William County in an incident in which a 17-year-old runaway from California was put to work as a prostitute, county police said.

Police said Friday that the matter came to light when the girl fled a hotel Sunday, went into a toy store in Woodbridge and asked for help.

Police said the girl ran away from home in December and an acquaintance, Julie Ann McKenna of Brooklyn, N.Y., brought her to New York, where the girl was put to work as a prostitute. Later, county police said, she was brought to Prince William, where she stayed for about four weeks in a hotel in the Woodbridge area. She was taken back to New York, then brought to Prince William again, police said.

McKenna, 21, and Marc Brickhouse, 32, also of Brooklyn, were found Thursday by the U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force in a hotel in Laurel, police said. They were arrested and brought to Prince William, police said.

Brickhouse and McKenna have been charged with pandering and causing a person to enter a bawdy place, police said. They said Brickhouse was also charged with abduction with intent to defile.

The two are being held without bond, police said.