Las Vegas man accused of sex-trafficking of Texas girl
A Las Vegas man has been arrested on sex-trafficking charges involving a 13-year-old Texas girl, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
Andrew DeWayne Carter, 20, who was already in custody at the Clark County Detention Center in a separate case, was booked Sept. 18 on charges of sex trafficking of a minor under 14 years old, first-degree kidnapping, child abuse or neglect and accepting the earnings of a prostitute.
He also faces drug possession charges and two traffic violations in different cases, jail logs show.
Metro launched an investigation in July after a Houston woman told police her missing granddaughter might be in Las Vegas.
According to an arrest report, the Texas girl had run away from home in May. Later that month, she was taken to Phoenix by a man she told Las Vegas police was a "pimp." She had been living in Phoenix for four to six weeks with that man when she met Carter after he waved at a gas station, police said.
Carter asked the girl if she had ever been a prostitute, and she told him she had and that she had left her "pimp," the arrest report said. She told police she chose to work with Carter, who took her from the gas station to a Motel 6, where he was staying with a woman and her 2-year-old child.
On June 20, the arrest report said, the four traveled to Las Vegas and Carter began taking the girl to the Tropicana corridor, a mile-and-a-half stretch of Tropicana Avenue between Decatur Boulevard and Interstate 15 where police say sex is often sold.
The girl was arrested on Tropicana on June 25, shortly after being dropped off by Carter.
When she was released, the arrest report said, the girl tried to avoid Carter and worked as a prostitute for a different man. But Carter went to the place the girl was staying with someone she met in jail, police said. He brandished a gun, scaring her into working with him again, the girl told police.
On July 22, police said, the woman who had traveled with Carter to Las Vegas called the girl's grandmother in Houston and told her the teen was in Las Vegas. It was unclear how the woman got the girl's grandmother's phone number.
Police interviewed Carter at Clark County Detention Center, where he had been transferred on unrelated charges from the Las Vegas City Jail. Carter admitted he took the girl from Phoenix to Las Vegas and paid for a hotel room for her.
He didn't acknowledge the girl's age or her work as a prostitute in his interview with Metro, according to his arrest report.
Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Find her on Twitter: @lauxkimber.
