A Fridley man and a St. Paul woman have been charged with luring a developmentally delayed 17-year-old girl from Iowa to be prostituted in Minnesota.
The girl, who turned 18 in late January, was forced to have sex with 30 men before she called police Jan. 31, according to charges filed Thursday in Ramsey County District Court.
Tyree E. Jones, 18, is charged with solicitation to practice prostitution, promotion of prostitution and engaging in sex trafficking. Jones' girlfriend, Bionca E. Mixon, 22, faces the same charges.
According to the complaint: The girl met Jones on a social website and ran away from Iowa to Minnesota on Jan. 25. The girl, who has Asperger syndrome and is at the developmental stage of a 13-year-old, lived with Jones and Mixon.
Jones forced the girl to have sex with him three times and with other men for money, the charges said. Jones and Mixon threatened to beat her up if she called for help.
The girl told police she was forced to have sex with 30 men -- most of them in her first few days in Minnesota -- at the Hilton Garden Inn on Minnesota Street in downtown St. Paul.
Mixon coached the girl on sexual acts and gave her a script of what to say, the complaint said. The girl feared for her life and wrote, "If you find me dead today, Biyonca Mickle [sic] did it. Tyree Erik Jones was also involved," on the back of a notebook.
The girl told police that Jones and Mixon knew she was 17 at the start, and that they took her out for her 18th birthday.
According to the complaint, Mixon told police, "I knew from the second day of being around her that she was slow and that she could be easily taken advantage of."
Mixon told police the girl was supposed to lure men to the hotel room and con them out of money without having sex. She also admitted to threatening the girl when she didn't make enough money.
Jones admitted renting the hotel room, but declined to answer further questions.
CHAO XIONG
