The 11-year-old wanted to make $1,000. The 15-year-old wanted $150 so she could get her fingernails done. A man called “Sleez” on Instagram told them he could help: If the girls came to Seattle from their homes in rural Oregon, he wrote, it would be “worth it.”
Once he’d driven them from eastern Oregon to the Seattle area, he’s alleged to have sexually assaulted the 15-year-old, and multiple friends allegedly did the same to the 11-year-old. The next day, he’s accused of taking the girls to Aurora Avenue with instructions for how to prostitute themselves, and abandoning them once he found out they didn’t get any customers.
Those allegations are detailed in court documents charging Ezra Wimana, 25, with human trafficking, rape of a child and promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. In Washington, children cannot legally consent to sex until age 16.
Bellevue police detectives arrested Wimana on Tuesday, and he remains in King County Jail on $500,000 bail.