Family Court marshal accused of sex trafficking teen girl
A Family Court marshal arrested this week is accused of sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl, according to an arrest report.
Bryce Tokunaga, 31, faces charges of first-degree kidnapping of a minor and sex trafficking a child under 18, court records show.
He turned himself in at the Clark County Detention Center on Monday, and was ordered to be released from custody without bail and placed on house arrest during a hearing on Tuesday, said his defense attorney, Jess Marchese.
Tokunaga was hired as a Family Court marshal on Feb. 5 and was still going through a training program at the time of his arrest, said District Court spokeswoman Mary Ann Price. He is now on administrative leave pending an investigation.
An investigation into Tokunaga began on Feb. 19, when police stopped his car near Tropicana and Polaris avenues. Tokunaga told police he was a marshal and that he was dating the 17-year-old girl riding in his car’s passenger seat, according to Tokunaga’s arrest report.
Metropolitan Police Department vice detectives were called to the scene because the officer who stopped Tokunaga’s car “believed the stop was possible prostitution related,” because of the girl’s apparent age and the area of town where Tokunaga was stopped, the report said. The girl did not cooperate with police at the scene, but investigators seized both her and Tokunaga’s cellphones.
Tokunaga “denied having any knowledge of (the girl) working as a prostitute or ever paying her money for sexual intercourse,” according to his arrest report.
But the report stated that police reviewed text messages between Tokunaga and the girl showing that Tokunaga facilitated her engaging in sex work, including arranging for her to travel out of state for the purposes of sex work. He was also accused of soliciting her to have sex with him, and buying her two firearms, according to the arrest report.
Marchese said he argued in court that Tokunaga is not a flight risk, and has no criminal history. Justice of the Peace Rebecca Saxe ordered Tokunaga to be placed on high-level electronic monitoring, and to have no contact with the victim, court records show.
Tokunaga is set to appear in court again on Thursday morning.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.