A grand jury charged a Roanoke County woman this month with prostituting a teenage girl for sex in Arlington five years ago.
Authorities said Yasmin Arely Vargas, 26, participated in a conspiracy to profit from grooming and providing girls under age 18 to paying customers for sex.
She allegedly joined Francisco Arturo Pineda-Torres, whom court papers describe as her boyfriend and a gang member, in running a sex trafficking enterprise from fall 2009 to April 2010, according to the indictment, which was handed up June 18 in the Eastern District of Virginia federal court.
Both face a conspiracy charge and charges of child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation for alleged activities involving a 14-year-old girl in late April 2010.
Once recruited, the girl was coached on forms of sexual engagement pleasing to customers, given alcohol, photographed, marketed and provided to customers for payment, the indictment said. Vargas and Pineda-Torres “harbored” the girl in their rented Arlington apartment, the indictment said.
Authorities took Vargas before a magistrate judge in Roanoke, who released her Wednesday with orders to report to court in Arlington on Friday
