Judge hears about sex trafficking of girl, 11, on Las Vegas Strip
An 11-year-old girl called herself a Las Vegas “hustler,” admitting that she drank and flirted with men in Strip casinos, according to courtroom testimony Thursday.
She told a social worker with the Clark County Department of Family Services that she smoked cigarettes and entered nightclubs with Gigi Mitchell, a 40-year-old woman facing sex trafficking and child abuse charges.
The girl said she sold “flower pens” to men they encountered in casinos for anywhere from $10 to $1,500 but denied having sex with them, Michael Amburgey, an officer with Metro’s child exploitation task force, told Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Harmony Letizia.
But social worker Felicia Tucker testified that the girl told her: “We’re not prostitutes.”
Mitchell wiped tears from her eyes as Tucker testified during a lengthy hearing to determine whether a jury should hear the charges against Mitchell, who is being held on $500,000 bail and is due back in court next month for a continuation of the hearing.
The girl has been taken in by Child Protective Services.
Amburgey testified that the girl admitted approaching men on casino floors at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Bellagio, New York-New York, Paris Las Vegas and Stratosphere to “make them feel comfortable and sometimes go along with what they were saying.”
She told police that she would accompany Mitchell and the men to hotel rooms “to get more money,” and Mitchell would give the men massages while she was “on her phone.”
Amburgey said he confronted Mitchell about a video that showed the girl kissing a man inside a car while Mitchell was sitting nearby.
Mitchell told the officer “she’s not ready,” according to a recording of her interview, played in court. “She’s too young.”
Metropolitan Police Department officers working at The Cosmopolitan in the early hours of March 2 spotted Mitchell and the girl approaching men in the casino while the girl wore a “tight-fitting” white floral dress and black high heels, according to an arrest report.
Police said at the time they believed responses from Mitchell and the girl were “rehearsed.”
The girl, identified in the arrest report as “victim 1,” told police that she and Mitchell had driven to Las Vegas from Arizona around the time of the Super Bowl in early February and had stayed at various hotels along the Strip.
After Mitchell allowed police to review her phone, investigators found a photo of male genitals that she sent to the girl. She denied sending the photo.
Mitchell’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Mike Feliciano, declined to comment on the allegations.
On the girl’s cellphone, police found various messages with men that appeared to be prostitution-related. In her purse, they found two condoms and three pens.
One of the men, Anton Halteh of San Francisco, messaged the girl’s phone about sex, according to a police report. Mitchell told detectives that she then replied from the girl’s phone, “Sorry hun, we are already done for the night.”
Halteh briefly pointed at Mitchell during his testimony Thursday but later told Chief Deputy District Attorney Sam Martinez that he was unsure whether she was the woman he met at the Bellagio.
In court, Mitchell was shackled and wearing a blue Clark County Detention Center jumpsuit. She had crimson streaks in her black hair.
Halteh said he received a massage in his room at Paris after exchanging text messages with a female, but it was unclear whether he was referring to Mitchell or the girl.
Mitchell told police that the man wanted her and the girl in the room, but the girl waited in a car in the parking garage.
When investigators first tracked Halteh down, according to court documents, he immediately responded: “I did nothing with the young one.”
Only Mitchell has been charged in the case.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.
