Police served a search warrant at Stars Cabaret in Beaverton and two homes Dec. 10 linked to an alleged sex trafficking operation ran out of the strip club involving two 13-year-old girls. Two men were arrested
(Beaverton Police Department)
A 14-year-old girl told authorities that in 2012 she repeatedly was forced into prostitution in a back room of a Beaverton strip club now
linked to a sex trafficking police investigation, according to a Washington County search warrant affidavit.
Court documents released Monday evening reveal the child claimed she worked for one month while she was 13 during the summer of 2012 at Stars Cabaret, 4570 S.W. Lombard Ave., where a then-manager of the strip club paid a Beaverton man for the girl to provide lap dances and sex acts for customers, the affidavit said. The affidavit also says the two men gave the girl methamphetamine, alcohol, marijuana and she was forced to have sex with them, along with several other men, and at one point she got pregnant.
Police served search warrants Dec. 10 at the strip club and two Beaverton homes and seized items including photos and records of everyone who worked at Beaverton's Stars Cabaret between June 2012 and June 2013, according to search warrant returns. Beaverton police said at least one girl was used for prostitution inside the strip club and were investigating the possible involvement of another 13-year-old girl.
Officers arrested Steven Toth, 42, a former manager at the Beaverton business who was working as a manager at the strip club's Tualatin branch when taken into custody, and Victor Moreno-Hernandez, 27, a registered sex offender who was the girl's pimp in 2012, according to court records and documents.
at the Beaverton business.
Moreno-Hernandez and Toth are scheduled to next appear in Washington County Circuit Court on Dec. 18. Moreno-Hernandez was arraigned Dec. 11, on charges of rape and compelling prostitution and Toth was arraigned the same day on charges of rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, compelling prostitution and delivery of marijuana to a minor. No other arrests have been announced.
The girl was admitted to an Arizona residential treatment facility in July 2013 a few days after being found by Portland police, the affidavit said. The girl's father, who lives in Portland, had reported her missing from his home.
The dad had reported his daughter as a runaway to Portland police four times between October 2012 and December 2012 and another three times between January 2013 and June 2013, according to the affidavit.
In that time, the girl said she was using drugs and engaged in prostitution, the affidavit said. She was interviewed by Portland and Beaverton police detectives at the Arizona facility in late October.
Why she ran away from home is not clearly stated in court documents.
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In late September, the girl's counselor at the Arizona facility called the Beaverton Police Department to report that the girl had been raped and forced into sex trafficking in the city, the affidavit said.
It was not the first time Beaverton police had received a call about the girl, according to the affidavit. The girl's father called Beaverton police in October 2012 to report that he was looking for his daughter who was retrieving her belongings from an apartment in the 11400 block of Southwest Center Street, the affidavit said. It was the apartment she had stayed in with a 29-year-old man who worked as a painter, the affidavit said.
The father told Beaverton police his daughter had run away two weeks before, was recovered by Gresham police and was missing again a few hours before he called, according to the affidavit. He got the Beaverton apartment address from his ex-wife, also the girl's mother, who he said escorted the girl to the same apartment three days before to pick up some items then as well, the affidavit said.
The dad said he had found new lingerie, jewelry and shoes in the girl's bedroom at his Portland home, knew she didn't buy them and feared she was being exploited, the affidavit said. Beaverton police searched the home on Center Street, but found no sign of the girl.
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The girl first met the 29-year-old in spring 2012 near a downtown Portland club, the affidavit said. She said she initially told him she was 18 and had been kicked out of her parents' house, the affidavit said.
They had sex and he soon suggested she live with him and his aunt in Beaverton, according to the affidavit.
The man learned the girl was 13 when she moved in with him the next day, but he continued the sexual relationship with her, the affidavit said.
The man got into an argument with his aunt less than a week later and both he and the girl were kicked out of the Beaverton apartment, according to the affidavit. The girl said they then moved into a Motel 6 near Southwest Lombard Avenue and stayed there for two weeks.
The man proposed marriage to the girl while they were staying at the motel, gave her a ring and she agreed, the affidavit said. They continued to have sex and he gave her alcohol, according to the affidavit.
The girl said she was contacted by police officers at the Beaverton motel on several occasions but told them she was 18 and gave them a false name, the affidavit said.
While staying at the motel, the girl went to a food truck parked at Moreno-Hernandez's apartment complex behind the motel several times and met him and his male roommate during the summer of 2012, the affidavit said. She soon moved in with them.
The girl said she stayed with the men for more than a month and engaged in some type of sexual activity every day with Moreno-Hernandez, including intercourse, the affidavit said. The roommate sold drugs and assigned her to count bundles of cocaine on one occasion, according to the affidavit.
The girl said the roommate also regularly provided her with methamphetamine, which Moreno-Hernandez injected into her forearm, the affidavit said. The girl told detectives that Moreno-Hernandez and the roommate knew she was 13, the affidavit said.
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The girl told Moreno-Hernandez that she had been involved in prostitution previously and was interested in doing it again for money, and Moreno-Hernandez agreed to be her pimp, the affidavit said.
The girl said Moreno-Hernandez helped her get a false birth certificate, Social Security card and Mexican resident alien card, the affidavit said. The identification had a fake name and displayed a birth date for an 18-year-old, according to the affidavit.
The girl said Moreno-Hernandez, the roommate and another man took her to Studio 503, a dance club on Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, where she claimed to know a bouncer. At the dance club, she said, the three men gave her alcohol and then they went back to Moreno-Hernandez's apartment where the brother and the other man had sex with her and paid Moreno-Hernandez, according to the affidavit.
The girl said another male friend of Moreno-Hernandez drove her to prostitution appointments, the affidavit said, and that she would perform sex acts on him as payment for the driving.
The girl said she had customers in the Beaverton area around Southwest Lombard Avenue, that she would have three to four appointments a day, and that Moreno-Hernandez received all the money she made, the affidavit said.
Moreno-Hernandez then suggested she work at Stars Cabaret in Beaverton and told the girl he would introduce her to someone there, the affidavit said. The girl said she was interested in working at the strip club because she didn't want to have sex for money anymore, the affidavit said.
The girl told detectives that she soon met with Toth, the club's manager at the time, inside the strip club, according to the affidavit.
The girl said she worked at Stars Cabaret almost daily for a month in a back room past the dancers' changing area, according to the affidavit. Toth usually brought two to three customers for lap dances or sex acts, the affidavit said.
Toth gave the girl money, which she then gave to Moreno-Hernandez, the affidavit said. She then walked back to Moreno-Hernandez's apartment, which is less than half a mile away from Stars Cabaret. The girl told detectives Toth also forced her to have sex and perform sexual acts on him several times.
The girl said she would get high on meth before going to Stars, and then was given alcohol while in the strip club, the affidavit said. When Toth wasn't around, she said she danced on the stage several times. She said another dancer questioned whether she was old enough to be working at the strip club on one occasion, according to the affidavit.
The girl soon told Moreno-Hernandez that she wanted to quit working at Stars Cabaret, the affidavit said. Moreno-Hernandez told Toth, who threatened her while displaying a black handgun and later gave her marijuana, the affidavit said.
In late September 2012, Moreno-Hernandez took the girl to Tuality Hospital in Hillsboro after she had stomach cramps and several positive pregnancy tests, the affidavit said.
The girl said she used a fake name and birth date. She was prescribed an antibiotic and pain medication, but Moreno-Hernandez took the prescription drugs from her when they returned to his apartment and gave them to his roommate to sell, according to the affidavit.
Detectives said reports from Tuality Hospital show the girl listed Stars Cabaret as her employer and that she had an ectopic pregnancy and was given medication to terminate it, the affidavit said.
The girl left Moreno-Hernandez's apartment soon after that, the affidavit said. The girl said she would occasionally stay at her father's home in Portland, but then run away, the affidavit said.
The girl eventually ran away again, met up with another 13-year-old girl and they both began prostituting in Portland, the affidavit said. They saved up money and traveled to Vancouver, where they found the man the girl first stayed with in Beaverton again and moved in with him, according to the affidavit said.
The girl said she, the other 13-year-old and a female adult neighbor of the 29-year-old engaged in prostitution and they were eventually arrested in Vancouver in October 2012, the affidavit said. The girl was taken into protective custody, went back to live with her father in Portland and later ran away again.
-- Everton Bailey Jr.
