A 33-year-old Long Beach man arrested in Orange County by a human trafficking task force has been charged with multiple felony counts following an investigation that led to the rescue of a 17-year-old victim from an Anaheim motel, officials announced Wednesday.
Investigators with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force received a tip on Jan. 8 from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the 17-year-old possibly being the victim of human trafficking.
“The task force immediately launched a human trafficking investigation and began searching for the girl,” according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. “Just hours later, … investigators found the teenage girl and her trafficker, 33-year-old Michael Terrell Armstrong of Long Beach, at an Anaheim motel.”
Armstrong was arrested and the girl was given victim services.
Armstrong has been charged by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit with single counts of human trafficking of a minor, pimping a minor over the age of 16 years and pandering with a minor over 16 years old — all felonies. He faces a maximum sentence of 29 years in state prison if convicted on all charges.
Armstrong remains jailed in lieu of $250,000 bond.
“The faces of human trafficking are unbelievably the faces of children, the most vulnerable victims who are being exploited by some of the most diabolical predators that exist, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a news release. “Our children are not for sale here in Orange County – or anywhere.”
The district attorney’s Human Exploitation and Trafficking Unit, a part of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, “targets perpetrators who sexually exploit and traffic women and underage girls for financial gain, including pimps, panderers and human traffickers,” according to Spitzer’s office.