HOUSTON, April 2 (UPI) -- Prosecutors in Texas said a 21-year-old Houston man has been jailed for allegedly pimping out teenage girls.
Tevon Harris, aka "Da Kidd" or "King Kidd," is charged with two counts of trafficking children under 18 for commercial sex while knowing they were underage and of using force, fraud or coercion to cause them to engage in a commercial sex act, prosecutors said.
The federal indictment carries a potential life prison term and a fine of up to $250,000, The Houston Chronicle said Tuesday.
The offenses allegedly happened in January and July 2012, when Harris met underage girls online and arranged to meet them with the promise he'd help them become models. Instead, police said Harris took the girls to motel rooms and forced them to have sex with him. He then posted pictures of them online on prostitution websites.
In one case, he allegedly ripped a towel holder from the wall of a motel room and beat a girl who tried reclaiming the cellphone he'd taken from her to call her mother for help. Other times he withheld food because the girls weren't servicing clients well enough, police allege.
Harris is scheduled to face trial June 4.
