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SALT LAKE CITY — Two men have been charged in connection with paying a teen girl that they meet on sugar daddy websites for sex.
John Carroll Hammans, 48, of Ogden, was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court with two counts of human trafficking of a child, a first-degree felony, and two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a third-degree felony.
Jesse Daniel Gomez, 45, of Salt Lake City, was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with human trafficking of a child, a first-degree felony, three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16 or 17-year-old, a third-degree felony; and furnishing alcohol to a minor, a class A misdemeanor.
The investigation began in December when the Utah Attorney General's Office received information a teen girl may have been the victim of trafficking.
Investigators learned the teen was involved in prostitution and "had been on various websites to exchange different services for money," according to charging documents. The girl told investigators she would post on "sugar daddy-type" websites, and recalled encounters with three men.
One of the men she met was Hammans, the charges state, adding she was 16 in August, when Hammans paid her and a 15-year-old friend $1,000 to have sex with both of them. Hammans allegedly picked the girls up, drove them to a hotel and after "dropped them off at a nail place to get their toes done."
A string of text messages between the girl and Hammans that were recovered by investigators shows the girl asking Hammans for money because she needed to post bail for her mother. Hammans responds by saying, "I paid your rent in full in advance for having two more meet-ups together," the charges allege.
Prosecutors have requested Hammans be held in jail without the possibility of posting bail, noting he is a flight risk, in part because he is a pilot and his listed home address comes back to a hangar in Ogden.
From approximately June through August, the girl met Gomez on a sugar daddy website, according to charging documents.
"(The teen) was going to be Gomez's sugar baby and sometimes Gomez would just buy her things without having sex first," the charges state.
The girl said Gomez would pick her up in his work van, which had a mattress in the back, and they would engage in sex, according to the charges. This allegedly happened twice. A third time Gomez took her to his apartment, according to the charges. He also is accused of buying her alcohol on at least one occasion.
