GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) -- A woman arrested by federal investigators in Holland is accused of conspiracy to traffic children for sex in Kent County between September and October of last year.
Stephanie Ann Martin, 23, was arrested Wednesday as part of an FBI sting operation into the sexual exploitation of children. She was released on a $25,000 bond and will be back in federal court Oct. 29 for a preliminary hearing.
Her arrest comes a day after the FBI announced a sting operation rescued 19 teenage girls who were peddled as prostitutes in metro Detroit and elsewhere in Michigan.
The arrests are part of a national effort to combat sex trafficking involving children as young as 12 years old, according to a news release Tuesday from the FBI
Two others are named in the criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids but have not been arrested.
The sting was part of the larger Operation Cross Country IX. The nationwide effort led to 149 sexually-exploited children being rescued and more than 150 pimps and others arrested, according to a FBI news release.
The criminal complaint unsealed Thursday in Grand Rapids says Martin and two others recruited teenage girls to work as prostitutes. The investigation was launched last October when Grand Rapids police received a tip that the girls, ages 15 and 16, were involved in prostitution with a woman at a Grand Rapids hotel.
One of the girls was marketed in an online prostitution advertisement, the criminal complaint states.
Under the plan, the adults would advertise the girls online and then split whatever they earned from customers.
The online advertisement generated numerous calls, resulting in the girls performing commercial sex acts with multiple men at a Holland apartment building, the criminal complaint states,
Martin rented a hotel room for the girls to use on six occasions last fall and multiple clients came to the hotels for sex, the criminal complaint says.