Oregon man charged in sex ring
Sunday, August 2, 2009 12:36 AM PDT
EUGENE (AP) — An investigation into an alleged prostitution ring that advertised underage girls on the Internet has resulted in a federal child sex trafficking charge against a Springfield man.
The U.S. attorney’s office charged DeSean Lavar Milton with knowingly working with others to profit from using four girls younger than 18 to engage in commercial sex acts. Milton, 28, and at least eight other people in Lane and Deschutes counties also have been indicted on state charges in cases involving underage prostitution, but Milton is charged with operating across state lines.
He is scheduled for arraignment Aug. 21 and has not yet entered a plea in the federal case. He pleaded not guilty in April, however, to related charges in Lane County Circuit Court.
Investigators declined to comment on his case and the related state court cases.
A Lane County grand jury indicted Milton on April 28 on four counts each of compelling prostitution, promoting prostitution and delivering methamphetamine to a minor, and one count of tampering with a witness.
In an affidavit seeking an arrest warrant for Milton, FBI special agent Augustus Fennerty said he has been on assignment investigating subjects involved in the prostitution of several children.
He said he met several Eugene police detectives April 7 in Springfield to search for one victim who had been reported missing by her mother. Police suspected she had become involved in prostitution.
Fennerty and the Eugene detectives went to a hotel room that had been under surveillance after the 17-year-old victim had been spotted. They found Milton with victim, along with a boy and a 14-year-old victim.
Eugene police Detective Curtis Newell interviewed the older victim, who said Milton had ‘‘prostituted her out,’’ Fennerty wrote in the affidavit.
In an interview with Newell, Milton confessed to ‘‘prostituting out’’ both girls, the affidavit alleges. He told the minors how much to charge and what to say to ‘‘johns’’ when they called, the affidavit said.
‘‘He further stated that he had been coordinating with johns via a telephone chat line and setting up prostitution deals,’’ Fennerty wrote.
One of the victims told Newell that Milton had arranged meetings between her and Prasath Boudavong, the former owner of a local restaurant.
Boudavong, 56, pleaded guilty in May to rape and sodomy for sex with four girls as young as 14. He was sentenced to 240 days in jail and three years of court-supervised probation.
He also was ordered to register as a sex offender and to forfeit to the state a pickup truck he used to transport the girls to a location where the sex acts took place because they were too young to drive.
Newell said Boudavong told him that Milton sent him several different prostitutes.
The federal charge against Milton follows Lane County grand jury indictments of at least seven people, including Boudavong, this spring on charges of compelling or promoting prostitution.
Under federal law, sex trafficking of minors is punishable by 10 years to life in prison.
Milton was being held without bail.
