Two men from Clearwater have recently been charged with sex trafficking of children. Specifically, it is alleged that the two men drugged a 16-year old girl and then offered her for sex to more than ten different men. One of the men, Mayham, has admitted to authorities that he drugged the young girl. However, he alleges that “any of the sexual acts performed were committed on her own accord.”
Gerald Eugene Mayham and Joel Raymond Nauta have both been charged with one count of sex trafficking of children and one count of conspiring to engage in sex trafficking of children. A complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court in Tampa last week and the men were arrested shortly after that. Mayham was already in custody in the Pinellas County jail on another charge when the complaint was filed, but Nauta was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshal’s Office.
Under the United States Code, sex trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial ex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age.
Mayham and Nauta allegedly gave drugs to a 16-year-old girl and then offered her for sex. According to the federal complaint, the girl lived with her mother in the same apartment complex that Mayham lived in; Mayham befriend her last year. The incident dates back to August 2nd when the girl’s mother contacted police to report her daughter had run away from home. Prior to this, the daughter had been seen hanging out with Mayham at the pool and had been acting out. The mother stated that she had approached the two and it appeared Mayham gave drugs to the girl before he took off with her purse and computer tablet.
The girl was found eight days after she was reported missing. Upon her return home she told authorities everything that had happened to her. She had met Mayham at the apartment complex playground and began smoking marijuana with him and Nauta; she was later provided with Xanax, cocaine, and alcohol. Mayham began to walk the girl around the complex asking men if they wanted to have sex with her. He never charged a specific price but just told them he would take whatever the men had.
Over the next eight days, the girl said that there were more than 10 incidents like this. However, on the other occasions, Mayham and Nauta walked with the girl in northern Clearwater and offered sex with for her $75. Most of the men were unwilling to pay the $75, but would offer to pay $40 instead. The girl recalls that if the sex lasted for more than 10 minutes the two men would bang on the man’s door.
The girl involved was under the age of 18 which is why the men are being charged with sex trafficking of children. Both men could face very serious sentences as a result of these incidents.
Source: Orlando Sentinel, Men drugged, sold 16-year old girl as sex slave, FBI alleges, 2/28/14
