Print edition: 
WICHITA — A runaway teenage witness forced a prosecutor to dismiss a human trafficking case against an accused pimp and two women charged with helping sell the girl for sex.
Then police found her.
“Welcome to the world of prosecuting human trafficking,” Sedgwick County Deputy District Attorney Marc Bennett said.
The Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office refiled the charges earlier this week against Michael L. Tyson, Angel Garza and another woman who has been identified as the mother of the girl, who is under 16.
Tyson and the girl’s mother were set for a preliminary hearing, after charges were filed in September. But after the girl, who was the main witness, disappeared, Bennett had to ask judges to continue hearing dates. The prosecutor was ordered to produce his witness or dismiss the case, which he did.
“Within 20 minutes, I got a call from the police, saying ‘You won’t believe it; we found her,’ ” Bennett said.
The girl had run away from Wichita.
Experts say youths who run away, often from abusive households, are most at risk of being lured and forced into the sex trade, in which they may work for years against their will. The average age of entry into the sex trade is between 11 and 14, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Prosecutors and police across the country say they’ve had problems convincing the teens to testify.
It’s no different in Sedgwick County, which is one of the few jurisdictions in the country that has actively been charging suspected pimps and customers who engage in commercial sex with minors. Police and prosecutors here have been looking at females they once charged with the crime of prostitution as victims of the commercial sex trade.
But with no charges to hold them, the witnesses are also free to leave.
“In the last three cases we’ve charged, all three of our witnesses have run away at least once,” Bennett said. “They’ve all returned. This one was gone the longest.”
Tyson, 29, was in the process of being released from jail when the witness resurfaced and the charges refilled. He remained in the county jail Friday in lieu of $250,000 bond.
He’s charged with three counts of having sex with the teenager, recruiting her into forced labor and involuntary servitude, and promoting prostitution. Garza is charged with promoting prostitution with a child under the age of 16.
The girl’s mother is charged with aggravated human trafficking for recruiting her daughter into forced labor, and promoting prostitution. The mother is not being named so as not to identify her daughter.
A new preliminary hearing will be set in the case.
