Last night police arrested Christopher Tyrone Young, a 28-year-old Florida man, for using Craigslist.org to prostitute a 17-year-old girl he met on MySpace.com, according to a statement by Thomas P. O'Brien, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.
Federal agents say that Young, AKA “Staydown,” shot explicit nude photos of the Caucasian girl, put the pictures on Craigslist and forced her “to walk” the streets of Anaheim (near Disneyland), Pomona, Montclair and Las Vegas looking for sex customers willing to pay $120 for 30 minutes or $250 for an hour.
The feds also alleged that Young had unprotected sex with the minor–a Marion County, Florida runaway known only as “FM” in legal documents–and supplied her with ecstasy tablets. And he promised to make her “a star,” according to FBI Special Agent Ashley L. Mericle.
Young, who based himself locally out of a Motel 6 on Dyer Road in Anaheim, is expected to appear in federal court in Santa Ana this afternoon to hear the formal sex trafficking charges. An arrest of the girl for prostitution in March launched the federal probe.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.