The FBI announced Monday that it had arrested nine people, including an Atlantan, on charges related to exploitation of children and prostitution in Savannah.
Details were sketchy, but the arrests were carried out by a task force of county, state and federal law officers that targets child exploitation around the port city. This is at least the third group of arrests or convictions announced this year of sexual-exploitation rings in the Savannah-Fort Stewart area.
In this case the FBI and the GBI partnered with the police departments in Richmond Hill, Pooler and Effingham County to bring charges against the following individuals:
Brad Albert Inherst, 32 of Greenville, Fla., charged with the use of computer service to seduce, solicit, lure or entice a child to commit an illegal act-felony.
Gerard Joseph Caouette, 24 of Hinesville, charged with the use of computer service to seduce, solicit, lure or entice child to commit an illegal act- felony.
Alexander Duval, 24 of Fort Stewart, charged with the use of computer service to seduce, solicit, lure or entice child to commit illegal act, a felony.
Alexander Ramon Williams, 21 of Fort Stewart, charged with use of computer service to seduce, solicit, lure or entice child to commit illegal act, a felony.
Thomas Ray Damewood, 25 of Savannah, charged with use of computer service to seduce, solicit, lure or entice child to commit illegal act, a felony.
Devin Lamont Mitchell, 29 of Savannah, charged with sexual exploitation of a minor, a felony.
Also arrested in this operation were:
Nathan Daniel Foster, 38 of Savannah, charged with pimping, a misdemeanor.
Jazeene Simpson, 19 of Atlanta, charged with prostitution.
Shawntrice Bryant, 20 of Savannah, charged with prostitution.
Last March, the FBI and the Pooler Police Department announced the arrest of six men, including two soldiers from Fort Stewart, on child exploitation charges. The men were charged with traveling to Pooler to have sex with a minor child.
In February, the FBI announced the life sentence of the leader of a sex trafficking ring that stretched from Mexico to Savannah. That investigation dubbed “Operation Dark Night” resulted in the convictions of 23 people.
That gang would entice women from Mexico, Nicaragua, and elsewhere to travel to the United States with promises of jobs and then forced them into prostitution in Savannah, Florida and the Carolinas.
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