Las Vegas, Nevada – A Las Vegas man will spend over 6 years behind bars for coercing two girls to travel from Oregon to Nevada to work as prostitutes.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 20-year-old Anthony Antonio Lewis admitted he convinced two minor girls to leave Oregon to become prostitutes in Nevada.
The 16 and 17 year old girls were in the custody of Oregon’s Department of Human Services when they ran away with Lewis and an associate, Johnny Le Andrew Hudson.
The Oregonian/Oregon Live reports Portland police were alerted by federal authorities after a missing Klamath Falls girl appeared on backpage.com, a website known for prostitution advertisements.
An undercover Las Vegas detective took the girl into custody after they set up a “car date.”
The girl later told investigators Hudson and Lewis encouraged her to be a prostitute with promises that she would earn enough money to buy a car and get a place to live once she returned to Oregon.
On June 1, Lewis was sentenced to 75 months in prison in the State of Nevada.
Hudson was sentenced last month to over seven years in prison for the same charges.
The U.S. DOJ said this case was prosecuted as apart of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative to combat the “growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.”
To learn more about Project Safe Childhood and for information about internet safety, visit http://www.usdoj.gov/psc.
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