FBI alleges corruption of teen began locally

Her first “customer” gave the teen $150. But the 16-year-old girl from Oklahoma was scared and didn’t want to have sex. She talked to the man for 10 minutes, and he left the Chesapeake hotel room.

By day’s end, though, she had met with six more men, and had sexual contact with five of them. Customers paid her a total of $750.

She handed it over to the man who had convinced her to take a bus to Norfolk, only to tell her, once she arrived, that prostitution would make her a woman, help her get a better life.

The allegations come from an FBI agent’s complaint filed in a federal case against that man, Irish Levon Woods, 22, in Oklahoma. The case came to light in court papers filed Thursday in Norfolk.

According to an FBI agent’s statement in federal court, Woods advertised the teenager’s services online on craigs-list, an Internet site that offers free regional listings. He included a cell phone number for customers to contact her.

The statement says the girl moved from city to city with Woods, who is now jailed.

Chesapeake. Raleigh. Chesapeake again. Philadelphia. Baltimore. Denver. Oklahoma City, where the girl was forced to “walk the strip” known for street prostitution, the statement says.

The girl’s odyssey began in November 2007, when she got on a bus for Norfolk. It ended in Amarillo, Texas, in late January.

That’s when police picked her up at a truck stop, after she and another female were knocking on the doors of trucks, the FBI statement says.

Police held her until her mother came from Midwest City, Okla. She is not facing charges, said Bob Troester of the U.S. attorney’s office in western Oklahoma.

The girl told authorities that Woods used force, assaults and threats to keep her with him, and to keep her working as a prostitute, authorities allege.

Woods is accused of taking a minor across state lines for prostitution (from Oklahoma to Texas) and a related charge, federal court records show.

A search warrant affidavit says that Norfolk police encountered the girl last year. She said she was a passenger in a car that Woods crashed, and that he ran off.

Police sought a warrant to search his vehicle, still in a local police impound, for evidence related to prostitution.

Woods has not been charged locally, said Officer Chris Amos, a Norfolk Police Department spokesman.

Matthew Roy, (757) 446-2540, matthew.roy@pilotonline.com