Flight From Group Home Takes a Turn for the Worse

Sex trafficking: 12 accused of sex crimes involving minors

By Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel

10:12 p.m. EDT, July 18, 2011

Two 15-year-old girls ran away from a group home in Highlands County and came to Orlando for a good time, Orange County sheriff's detectives say.

They met a couple of men in their 20s on a bus from Universal CityWalk to Orange Blossom Trail and went home with them. They drank alcohol, smoked marijuana and had sex with the men, investigators said.

The "fun" turned to terror, however, when half a dozen men subsequently raped one girl, and two men took the second girl to Miami, where they forced her into prostitution, detectives said.

The Sheriff's Office on Monday announced the arrest of nine men — including a convicted sex offender on probation — and one woman they say were involved. Deputies have arrest warrants for two other men.

"I think there are predators who go after naïve girls to take advantage of," said Anderson Ashby, the lead detective on the case.

The investigation began in February, when law officers in Miami contacted their counterparts in Orange County. Deputies learned that the girls, who were in the group home because of behavioral problems, including cutting school, ran away in late December.

During their visit to the Orlando area, they were taken to an abandoned house, where one girl was forced to have sex with six men, investigators said. The other girl had sex with two of the men, they said.

The first girl fled back to the group home after two or three weeks. She has not been cooperating with the prosecution because she has been blaming herself, deputies said.

The other girl was forced to have sex with three men in Miami before she was arrested. She is now back home with her mother in Lakeland, Ashby said.

The men were arrested on charges including sex trafficking, procuring a minor for prostitution and lewd or lascivious battery.

The woman, Martha Wilson, 23, of Orlando was arrested on a charge of interference with custody. Investigators say she allowed some of the sexual activity to occur at her home.

Deputies found a picture of one man, Craig Golden, 26, of Orlando, on one of the girl's cell phones, they said. He was posing with a phone in one hand and a gun in the other. Golden got out of prison in November after serving 13 months on drug charges. As a convicted felon, he cannot legally possess a gun.

Also arrested were:

•Guytembert Garcon, 23, of Orlando, who is on probation for a 2006 conviction for lewd or lascivious battery on a person between 12 and 15 years old.

•Olgens Alcide, 22, of Orlando, who is on probation for a 2009 conviction for armed robbery.

•John Peter Henry, 27, of Miami, who was released from prison in 2009 after serving a 13-month sentence for selling cocaine.

•Lachristophe (also spelled "Lachristoph") Smith, 29, of Orlando, who was released from prison in 2006 after serving about three years for burglary, grand theft and selling marijuana.

•Luc Louidor, 25, of Orlando.

•Brothers Leo David, 30, and Rodney David, 26, both of Orlando.

•Shayne Parsons, 25, of Orlando.

Two men still being sought were identified as Montavius Rakeem Postell, 20, and Boby Louis, 23, both of Orlando.

Detectives say Postell and Golden brought the girl to Miami to work as a prostitute.