Court records detail lives led by teenage prostitutes

Wednesday, May 12th 2004, 12:24 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Girls as young as 12 were either forced to or willingly sold their bodies for money to pay for food and shelter or to finance drug and other habits, documents in an investigation show.

Nineteen people were charged earlier this week with child prostitution, sex trafficking of children and pimping after a yearlong, FBI-led investigation coordinated with city and state law enforcement agencies.

Many of the under-18 girls were shipped from the Oklahoma City area to cities in Colorado, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio to work for a new pimp and in search of new ``johns,'' the records show.

The girls lived in fear of pimps who controlled their every move, court papers show.

In one case, a 12-year-old girl who began prostituting in January 2000, accused her pimp, Tori Dion Easley, of making her perform sex acts for money.

Since, she ``has worked for and been sold to various pimps operating in the Oklahoma City area,'' according to the court documents.

In another case, a 16-year-old chronic runaway fell into the life after she was taken to a drug house across the street from a downtown Oklahoma City rescue mission where she was staying.

She allegedly met Ovie Joel Woody, who she said was a crack dealer and snorted cocaine.

The 16-year-old told authorities would pay for crack with sex, records show. Woody tried to force her into becoming a prostitute, once beating her, according to a prior police report taken after the girl returned home.

By the time police had followed up, she had once again left home for the streets and Woody.

``Woody had learned that (the girl) bruised easily and began choking her instead of hitting her with his fist when he became upset,'' the girl told police in February at the Canadian County Juvenile Center.

By this time, the teen was charging as much as $90 for sex and working streets in south Oklahoma City, at Interstate 40 truck stop and answering escort service calls, according to court papers.

Court records also allege that Michael Wayne Thomas would make girls between the ages of 14 and 18 work as prostitutes in Harrisburg, Pa., Denver, Dallas and in the states of New York and Ohio.

Thomas is charged in federal court with controlling several teenage prostitutes by using ``violence, threats of violence, the exhibition of weapons and the distribution of drugs to intimidate prostitutes and control them,'' according to court papers.