There’s gotta be a logical explanation…

Detroit- from www.freep.com – After six years of being the run, a Ukraini­an nightclub owner is scheduled to appear in federal court in Detroit today to face charges that he smuggled women into the country and forc­ed them to work in metro Detroit strip clubs.

Veniam­in Go­nikman, who was arrested by of­ficials in Ukraine on Jan. 26 and extradited to the U.S., is scheduled to make a 1 p.m. court appearance in U.S. District Court.

According to federal authorities, Gonikman had been hiding out in a Ukrainian village for years before being arrested there for immigration violations. He was then flown to New York, where he was tak­en into custody by U.S. Im­migration and Customs Enforce­ment.

He had been on the U.S. govern­ment’s most-wanted list since flee­ing the country in 2005, short­ly af­ter be­ing in­dicted in Detroit on human traf­ficking and forced la­bor charges.

Veniamin Gonikman had been on the U.S. most-wanted list since fleeing the country in 2005.

Accord­ing to court records, Go­nikman came to the at­tention of agents in Detroit in 2005, when one of his victims escaped and agents confirmed he was op­erating Beauty Search in metro Detroit.

Accord­ing to the in­dict­ment, Go­nikman and sev­eral oth­ers, including his son, used Beauty Search as a cover for an op­eration that smuggled women into the U.S.

The women primarily staffed Detroit strip clubs, where they al­legedly were forced to work 12 hours a day and gave all their proceeds — more than $1 million — to Gonikman and his as­sociates, court records show.

Go­nikman’s as­sociates, including his son, Aleksandr Maksimenko of Livonia, were convicted on charges similar to the ones he faces. They are serving pri­son sen­tences rang­ing from sev­en to 14 years.

If convicted, Gonikman faces a maximum of 20 years in fed­eral pri­son.