Lansing underage sex trafficking ring reached Arizona

Kevin Grasha, Gannett Michgian

LANSING – A 17-year-old Lansing girl is one of at least two people officials say recruited local teens to work as prostitutes in a sex trafficking ring that stretched to Arizona.

The case — which is being prosecuted in both local and federal courts — so far has led to charges against the 17-year-old, Mariah Haughton, and 24-year-old Christopher Turryle Bryant of Lansing.

Christopher Turryle Bryant, left, Mariah Haughton

Officials expect to announce charges against a third person today.

Haughton is charged as an adult in Lansing's 54A District Court with multiple counts, including human trafficking. She also is charged with recruiting minors to work as prostitutes and with creating child porn.

Her attorney, Barbara Herdus, could not be reached Thursday.

Bryant is charged in federal court with multiple counts of sex trafficking. Three of the counts involve girls under the age of 18.

According to court documents, one of the girls was lured by the promise of earning "easy money." In March, the documents say, she was taken to unnamed Lansing motels, given drugs and alcohol, and had sex with multiple men who paid between $100 and $200.

That girl, who is not named, told investigators about others she believed were taken to Arizona and Alabama to work as prostitutes, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.

Bryant is being held without bond at the county jail. A federal indictment was unsealed last week, court records show, and Bryant was arrested at the jail on the federal charges. Bryant already was in jail on local charges including home invasion and assault by strangulation.

In addition to multiple sex trafficking counts, Bryant is charged in the federal case with transporting someone for purposes of prostitution. That charge involves an unidentified person who was allegedly taken to Arizona.

Bryant's attorney, Sharon Turek, declined to comment.

Some of the allegations are detailed in an FBI search warrant application seeking to obtain information from Facebook accounts belonging to Bryant, Haughton and two others investigators believe were part of the prostitution ring.

The girl recruited in March told investigators that Bryant took nude cellphone photos of her and posted them on "along with text advertising (her) as a prostitute," court documents say.

The same day, Bryant began receiving calls from people wanting to have sex with the girl. Bryant, Haughton and another man took her to an unnamed Lansing motel. She would leave the room and "go to the Johns' cars to have sex with them," court documents say.

Soon after, Bryant and the girl went to a different Lansing motel and rented two rooms, according to the documents.

The girl told investigators she had sex with multiple men but didn't know how many because "she was high on drugs and not fully cognizant of what she was doing."

Bryant, the documents say, wanted to take the girl to Arizona to work as a prostitute and claimed "that he had other girls in Arizona (who) worked as prostitutes for him."

After a fight with Bryant over money, the girl left the second motel and began working as a prostitute for Haughton, according to court documents. The sex acts happened in a Lansing apartment. A witness has identified half a dozen girls, some under the age of 18, who allegedly worked for Haughton, the documents say.

Court documents say Haughton recruited girls to work as prostitutes and regularly used to advertise them.

She would find girls "on the street and at a juvenile placement center," the documents say.

Bryant is alleged to have used Facebook to recruit prostitutes.

What's next

Officials are expected today to announce charges against a third person in a local sex trafficking ring.