Oklahoma City child prostitution conviction

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- An Oklahoma City man accused of trafficking child prostitutes has been convicted in federal court.<br/><br/>33-year-old Troy Lamar Sutherland was found guilty Tuesday after a two-day

Wednesday, January 12th 2005, 5:36 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- An Oklahoma City man accused of trafficking child prostitutes has been convicted in federal court.

33-year-old Troy Lamar Sutherland was found guilty Tuesday after a two-day trial.

Prosecutors accused Sutherland of picking up teenage girls in Wichita, Kansas, and taking them to Missouri, where he gave them drugs, makeup, suggestive clothing and dyed two girls' hair blond.

Sutherland was accused of driving the girls to Oklahoma City, where one went to work for a pimp and the other two were released at a truck stop.

Sutherland's attorney, Jack -D- Pointer, argued that his client was merely trying to help a friend when he picked up the girls in Kansas. He had helped one of the girls in the past when she ran away from home.

Two of the girls testified in a courtroom closed to the public.

Sutherland is one of nine alleged pimps charged in May after a yearlong, FBI-led investigation into child sex trafficking in Oklahoma City.

The other eight defendants pleaded guilty before trial.