WUNRN
Backpage.com - http://www.backpage.com/
USA - Midwest - Underage Girls -
Pimped on Backstage.com
Charges:
Men advertised girls in Backpage, pimped them at Eagan hotel
State
of Minnesota - Minneapolis Suburb of Eagan
By PAUL WALSH , Star Tribune - July 20, 2012
http://www.startribune.com/local/163189496.html
Two St. Paul men have been charged with pimping two teenage girls at an
Eagan hotel and threatening them with a gun after luring customers through
a steamy classified ad on the Backpage.com website.
Giorgio J. Baymon, 25, and Brandon D. Barnes, 24, were each arrested and
charged in Ramsey County District Court with sex trafficking of minors,
inducing minors for prostitution and promotion of prostitution of minors.
One of the girls, 17, was picked up at school by Baymon and Barnes and
taken to the Eagan hotel with the other girl, who was 15 at the time and a
runaway, the charges alleged. While there for several days in early May,
the two girls had sex with two men who answered the Backpage.com ad and
with a friend of the defendants who gave the men marijuana as payment, the
complaint read.
Baymon was arrested on June 13 in an unrelated case. Police confiscated
his cell phone, which included the explicit photos of the 15-year-old that
were used in the Backpage.com ad, according to the complaint.
Barnes, seen on video paying the Eagan hotel bill, told police that he
didn't know what was going on in the room, the charges added.
However, the complaint added, the 15-year-old girl said both Baymon and
Barnes were at the hotel with them and armed.
Also charged in the case last month was one of the men who answered the
website ad and allegedly had sex with the girls. Mickey A. Cupkie, 37, of
Elko, admitted using his cell phone while at work in St. Paul to look up
the girls on Backpage.com, according to charges against him.
The case involving these two girls prompted Ramsey County Attorney John
Choi to echo the growing chorus nationally that is demanding that Village
Voice Media, Backpage.com's owner, shut down the website's adult section
because it's being used "as a platform to traffic minors for sex."
Last month, Liz McDougall, general counsel to Village Voice Media, told
the Star Tribune that Backpage did not intend to "make a single penny off
of this abhorrent activity" and had been monitoring the site, cooperating
with law enforcement and working with anti-trafficking groups "to find
effective, workable solutions."
In 2008, Baymon was sentenced to three years in prison for shooting at a
Ramsey County sheriff's deputy who was working off duty at a Maplewood
nightclub.