Two child-prostitution cases this week are reminders that the person introducing kids to the ugly trade isn’t always a fast-talking pimp stalking runaways at bus terminals.
He or she could be mom, an uncle or a friend heralding the perks of streetwalking in their own home or in school hallways, said Carol Lease, executive director of Empowerment, a Denver group that helps women and girls escape prostitution.
In one case in Denver County Court this week, a female relative of a 14- year-old girl is charged with having her perform sex acts for numerous men inside a van. Jerrie Alcon, 46, has been charged with four counts of pimping a child, five counts of procurement of a child, five counts of pandering of a child and three counts of sexual assault on a child.
In the same case, Edwin Lara, 24, was charged Tuesday with sexual assault and patronizing a prostituted child. Both Alcon and Lara are being held on bonds of $100,000.
In the second case, a high school classmate allegedly offered to let a 17-year-old friend stay with her in an apartment and then taught her how to pose as a masseuse to make money performing sex acts for men.
Sarah Dayne Mahany, 18, was charged Tuesday with two counts of soliciting for child prostitution, procurement of a child, inducement of a child for prostitution and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She is out of jail on a $10,000 bond.
Lease said relatives and friends are more persuasive than strangers in luring kids into prostitution because of the trust they’ve already established with them.
In most cases, Lease said, girls were molested before they entered prostitution. Friends and relatives coax them into the business with the argument that since they are already having sex, they might as well make money at it.
“It’s not uncommon that that’s how they get introduced to the life,” Lease said. “The younger the girls are, the more sexually naive they are.”
Girls who enter prostitution get tangled up in drug abuse and are often victims of violence, she said.
A Chicago study of 220 prostitutes found that 62 percent of the women entered prostitution before they were 18 and a third of them were younger than 15, Lease said.
The 14-year-old victim spotted Lara’s van several days ago and recognized it as the one she was inside July 12 when several men had sex with her, said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for District Attorney Mitch Morrissey.
Alcon arranged for the girl to perform sexual favors for money and drugs for numerous men inside the van, including Lara, Kimbrough said.
Mahany allegedly advertised her 17-year-old friend’s services through adult and erotic services websites, saying “barely legal is an understatement.” The site included sexually suggestive pictures of the girl that Mahany took, the girl told police.
The girl also said her high school classmate gave her methamphetamine twice. She told authorities she performed sex acts 17 times in December and January under the guise that she would do massages, according to court records.
Police arrested the girl during a sting Jan. 22, according to court records.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
