A San Diego man arrested in an undercover sting operation is scheduled to be arraigned this morning on charges of sexually trafficking one woman and pimping three others via sex website ads. Harvey Rashad McNight, 29, faces up to 28 years in prison with a conviction.
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The Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) is crediting McNight's arrest to its Human Exploitation And Trafficking (HEAT) Unit, which targets pimps, panderers and human traffickers since the November passage of California's anti-human trafficking Proposition 35.
“McNight is accused of being a pimp/modern-day slave owner who exploits women and/or children for financial gain,” reads an OCDA statement. “In this case, he is accused of pimping three women, ages 20 to 40.”
Before March, McNight allegedly drove one woman against her will from San Diego to Las Vegas, where he threatened to beat her, take her cell phone and leave her naked in Sin City is she did not earn for him.
In March, McNight allegedly advertised the services of three women via a website the OCDA is not naming. Santa Ana police officers posed as johns who met the women in a motel room in that city on March 8, the OCDA claims.
One woman McNight pimped had come from San Diego against her will to engage in sex acts. She and the other two women later told officers in a motel room that McNight was pimping them, the OCDA alleges. McNight is said to have been arrested at the scene when he returned to collect his money. His cell phone contained text messages from the women referring to McNight as “Daddy,” a common handle for pimps, according to authorities and anyone who watches cop shows.
McNight is charged with one felony count of human trafficking, three felony counts of pimping, and three felony counts of pandering by procuring. Arraignment is set this morning in Santa Ana.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.