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TAYLORSVILLE — A 19-year-old Sandy man charged Thursday with human trafficking of a child for allegedly forcing a teenage girl to engage in sexual acts in exchange for vaping materials is now being tied to the investigation of a man luring children to his car in Sandy.
Braiden Riley, 19, of Sandy, was charged Thursday by the Utah Attorney General's Office with two counts of human trafficking of a child and two counts of sodomy on a child, first-degree felonies; two counts of sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony; and enticing a minor, a third-degree felony.
On Friday, police also confirmed that Riley is the lone suspect in a case that Sandy officers issued a public warning about earlier this week.
On Monday, police warned the public that a man on two occasions tried to lure children into his silver Volkswagen Tiguan. The incidents occurred on June 6 and June 9, both in the area of 11000 South to 11400 South and 700 East. As of Friday, Riley had not been arrested in connection with those cases, but police say after doing some follow-up investigation, he is their lone suspect.
Meanwhile, the extortion investigation began in February when Taylorsville police received information that a 13-year-old girl had met Riley on social media and later met up with him to obtain vaping products, according to charging documents. Riley allegedly claimed he was 15.
There was no prior discussion of sexual acts being involved. But when Riley picked up the girl in his car and took her to a parking lot, he forced her to engage in sexual activity in exchange for the vape materials, according to the charges. On another day, the two met up again and the same thing happened, but this time the girl's 12-year-old friend was also in the car with them, the charges state.
The 12-year-old later told investigators that "after they left and walked home, (her friend) was crying because she did not want to do it but she is addicted to the vape," according to the charging documents.
Investigators served a search warrant on Riley's Instagram account and found more than 1,100 messages, though none of them were to the teen girl.
"Most, if not all, of the message threads were the target account (Riley's) contacting other accounts who it appeared he did not know. Throughout the message threads, (Riley) invited other account holders to smoke weed and asked for sexually explicit pictures or to meet (them for sex)," the charges state. "Many of the other account holders stated they were 11 to 15 years old, to which the target account stated he was 14 to 19 years old."
A warrant was issued Thursday for Riley's arrest.
