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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
According to court documents filed in the case, on January 11, 2008, police received a report of a 15-year-old runaway from Montana. The police learned that the girl was being offered as a prostitute on Craigslist, and an undercover police officer made a “date” to meet her. The officer met her in a Sacramento motel room, confirmed that she was in fact the 15-year-old runaway, and took her into custody. The girl told police that she had run away from her home in Montana at West’s urging when she began talking to him online. West paid for a bus ticket for the girl to come to Sacramento from Montana, and she arrived on December 25, 2007. West met her at the bus station and took her to a female friend’s apartment where he had the woman post an ad on the online service RedBook offering the girl as a prostitute. The girl prostituted for West out of a Sacramento motel for two days.
Response and intervention
This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the Innocence Lost Task Force, which includes agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Sacramento Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys Carolyn K. Delaney, Jill M. Thomas, and Kyle F. Reardon prosecuted the case.