NCAST

Jun 18, 2008

by Scott McCabe, The Examiner 

WASHINGTON - A woman who lured a 14-year-old North Virginia girl into her hotel room with promises of a glamorous modeling career was trying to recruit the teen into a life of prostitution in Las Vegas, according to FBI officials.

Katie Faye King, 21, was charged Monday in federal court in Alexandria with sex trafficking. King, who has at least six aliases, was being held in Fairfax County jail on bench warrants out of Nevada.

Authorities said King approached the teen at the Tysons Corner Center mall to see if she was interested in modeling. When the girl told King she was 14, King said she could lie and tell everyone she was 18, documents said.

King hailed a taxi and took the girl to the Courtyard by Marriott in Tysons Corner. In the hotel room, King explained that she needed to take test shots of the girl, and if her boss liked the photos, he would provide a plane ticket to fly the teen to Las Vegas for an audition, documents said.

As part of the tryout, King told the girl she would have to dance for men but she also could make money during the audition by taking off her clothes, according to court documents. King went on to say that the girl could easily make $1,000 if she agreed to have sex with the men, documents said.

King asked the girl if she wanted to remove her clothes for the photos, but the girl declined, documents said. Using a camera with her cell phone, King took a close-up of the girl’s face and two photos of her body. After sending the photos to her boss, she spoke to the boss on speaker phone. The boss, whom FBI officials have identified as a Las Vegas pimp, agreed that the girl had “the look.”

Afterward, King said she had to get ready for one of her appointments and asked if the girl was interested. The girl declined and left. The girl later sent a text message to King to see if her foster mother could travel to Las Vegas with her.

Clark County court officials in Las Vegas said King has been arrested in connection with more than 50 misdemeanors, mostly on trespassing charges. Legal experts in Las Vegas said the trespassing charges are usually for sex workers who have been ordered to stay away from casinos where they were arrested on prostitution-related charges.