A St. Paul man and woman were found guilty Tuesday of sex trafficking a 15-year-old girl out of their home.
Johnathan B. Edwards, now 25, and Kauser M. Yusuf, now 22, were charged last December in Ramsey County District Court with first-degree sex trafficking after a girl told police that the pair made her have sex with as many as 20 men a day.
Edwards and Yusuf face sentencing Feb. 27.
Authorities are also investigating "an outburst that directly followed the verdict," according to a news release from the Ramsey County attorney's office. Additional charges against Edwards stemming from the disturbance are possible. Nobody was injured.
According to the complaint:
On Nov. 25, 2013, the St. Paul Police Department's human trafficking unit received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that the organization had been e-mailed by ad site Backpage.com about an e-mail from a possible child sex-trafficking victim that pertained to an advertisement on the site. The e-mail read, in part, "I'm only 15 years old … please help."
The e-mail led police to locate the girl who said Edwards and Yusuf gave her a ride to a Maplewood hotel where Edwards took cellphone pictures of her in lingerie before they all went to their house. The girl said that the pair put the photos of her on the Internet.
The teenager said the pair had men come over to their house to have sex with her.
