JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. – The mother of a woman accused of trading sex with her 6-year-old daughter in exchange for drugs says her daughter has only been charged with child neglect and that the selling or trading of her granddaughter for sex is only an accusation.
Dalina Nicholas, 39, is in jail in Columbus, Ga., waiting to be extradited to Jacksonville Beach.
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Police said 56-year-old Quinn Brooks and 47-year-old John Hagans are also in jail, accused of raping the girl. Police are also looking for a third man, 51-year-old Norman Thompson, wanted on rape charges.
The 6-year-old's grandmother said her daughter's neglect charge came about because Nicholas let the men inside her Jacksonville Beach home.
But the grandmother said her daughter lived alone and that made her and her granddaughter an easy target.
The grandmother also described her daughter as a prisoner inside her own home and said her daughter tried to stop all of it from happening.
Jacksonville Beach police said the crimes took place in mid-January. According to police reports, the girl gave a detailed account of what she said the men did to her, saying some of the acts were physically painful.
Detectives said they started investigating after a homeless man flagged down an officer and told him that he knew of a young girl getting sexually abused by multiple men and it had been going on for the last two years.
He then told police Nicholas "would allow different men sexual access to the victim in exchange for drugs and/or money while at her house," according to the police reports.
The man told police he "witnessed Nicholas tell the victim to take off her clothes and lay on a mattress in the living room, saw the suspect give Nicholas $20 and then perform oral sex on the victim," according to the reports.
The man said he told detectives because the girl asked him to help her "make it stop," according to the reports.
Nicholas told police she had no idea what was going on and said she was a victim of sexual abuse as a child as well.
Police were expected to head to Muscogee County, Ga., to pick Nicholas up sometime this week.
If you have any information on Thompson's whereabouts, call Crime Stoppers at 866-845-TIPS.