Suspected Sex Trafficker Busted On Las Vegas Strip After Woman Steals $3k From Vice Cop

Posted on: December 17, 2020, 03:31h. 

Last updated on: December 17, 2020, 03:51h.

Larry Henry Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Gaming Business, Legislation, Politics, Regulation.

A 36-year-old man was booked into jail in Las Vegas over the weekend in an undercover sex trafficking sting on the Strip.

Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is seen in this nighttime photograph. The Strip was the site this weekend of a sex-trafficking arrest. (Image: Mark Damon/Las Vegas News Bureau)

The arrest happened after a woman attempted to steal $3,000 from a Las Vegas undercover vice officer posing as a customer, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Brent Keith Rodgers was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on Sunday. He is due in court Dec. 30 on charges of facilitating sex trafficking of a victim over 18, conspiracy to commit theft and more, according to the newspaper.

Rodgers was arrested after a woman agreed late Saturday to have sex for $500 with the undercover officer pretending to be a customer, the newspaper reported.

The woman went to the officer’s hotel room on the Strip. The officer placed cash in a dresser drawer and left the room momentarily. Surveillance video shows the woman taking the money while on a phone call. After she left the room, police waiting outside arrested her. The money was recovered from her purse, the Review-Journal reported.

Police located Rodgers in the hotel by examining the woman’s phone. The suspect said the woman was a model who had gone to the room to pose for photos. He denied being her pimp, according to the newspaper.

The woman also was arrested. Her name was redacted in the police report.

Sex Crimes

The incident Sunday was the latest in recent sex crime arrests in the Las Vegas area.

Christopher Mark Damron, 46, of Oxnard, California, was booked into jail last week, facing charges of soliciting a child for prostitution and luring a child for sexual acts, according to news reports.

The man replied to an online prostitution ad, saying he was grumpy because he had lost money, so was “trying to get happy,” according to the Review-Journal. He agreed to pay $200 for sex, police said.

Damron’s reply to the ad went to a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officer posing as a 15-year-old girl, the newspaper reported.

Damron went the next day to an agreed-upon location, where he was arrested. He told officers he was not planning on having sex with the 15-year-old girl. He said he only wanted to take her ice skating at a rink at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas on the Strip, according to the Review-Journal.

Damron’s arrest was one of 11 in a law enforcement crackdown on internet crimes against children in the area. Police also arrested an elementary school assistant principal.

Off-Strip Arrest

In November, police arrested 49-year-old Trevor Carter at an off-Strip hotel-casino on suspicion of sex-trafficking a juvenile under the age of 18, according to news reports.

The man told the juvenile female to charge $500 for each sexual encounter. She also was told to look for men wearing “cowboy buckles and boots” as potential good customers, according to published accounts.

The juvenile was told to make her customers drink a shot of liquor to be sure the person was not an undercover officer, police said.