BATON ROUGE — A man accused of sexually exploiting a girl starting when she was 14 has been formally charged with human trafficking and other crimes.
Tramon Criss, 27, was arrested in April in the abuse of a girl who thought of him as her “boyfriend,” police said at the time.
Investigators had been looking for the victim for more than a year when she was found in March during a theft investigation. She had been missing for months before her family even reported her disappearance to police.
Baton Rouge Police told UWK that officers were working a different case when they ran across online ads offering the victim’s sexual services.
That triggered the investigation that led to Criss’ arrest, uncovering phone messages that police say showed that Criss was acting as a pimp for the girl, arranging paid sexual encounters at hotels and other locations in and around Baton Rouge. Evans said the pair may have also traveled to surrounding states.
Criss was held on $200,000 bond after his arrest. He tried to have his bond reduced, and then filed several motions asking the court to release him because he had not been formally charged and had been held in jail more than two months, court records show.
On Tuesday, a court commissioner granted one of those motions. On Wednesday, the state Attorney General’s office filed a bill of information charging Criss with human trafficking and two counts of possession of child sexual abuse materials, court records show.
Criss remained in East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Thursday.
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