TOLEDO — Six people from Lima and a Fort Wayne woman face federal charges over a prostitution operation involving the human trafficking of minors.
Some have different charges, and some are charged more heavily, depending on their roles in the alleged operation. The allegations are that each played a role in an organized operation in which at least two teenage girls were sold for sex, according to court records.
The scheme was not sophisticated. It used sites on the internet such as “Backpage” under the topic of “adult entertainment” or “escorts” to line up clients. Arrangements were made for the men seeking girls for hire to meet at a Lima motel or sometimes a motel in Fort Wayne, according to court records.
An undercover police officer on the task force posed as a man seeking sex for hire and was able to set up the bust.
Arrested were Lorenzo Young, Aundre Davis and Randy Thompson, of Lima, who all face similar charges, as does Megan Hitt, of Fort Wayne, who is Young’s girlfriend and a prostitute.
Precious Russell, an adult prostitute from Lima, also was charged. Shemeric Cook and Jacqueline Young, Lorenzo Young’s mom, were each charged with conspiracy to obstruct a sex trafficking investigation.
Jacqueline Young, at the request of her son, instructed Hitt to tell the teenage girls to avoid police and not cooperate should they get a hold of them, according to federal court records. Hitt allegedly deleted various records, including phone numbers and pictures, and told one person to erase emails.
The charges allege crimes between November and May in which Hitt, Lorenzo Young, Thompson and Davis recruited, lined up, transported and advertised prostitutes and solicited sex with minor girls. The girls were paid 25 percent of the money brought in, according to court records.
Thompson was scheduled to appear in an arraignment late Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Toledo on the charges of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in prostitution, sex trafficking of a minor, conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of a minor, sex trafficking of a minor and obstruction of sex trafficking investigation.
Hitt and Russell also had arraignments scheduled for late Wednesday.
Lorenzo Young and Davis originally were charged in state court in Allen County, but charges were dropped when federal authorities indicted them this month. The men have pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, as have all other defendants who have had arraignments.
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