The Alger County Sheriff’s Office hosted coalition partners of the U.P. HOST (Human Oppression Strike Team) and set forth operations to identify and arrest consumers of child sex crimes in Alger County.
Police say that 38-year-old Clifford Lawrence Kaja of Gladstone, chatted with undercover police agents, posing as minors, and showed up at a hotel in Munising, MI with a form of payment, in exchange to have sex with a 15-year-old.
He arrived wearing a Teenage Ninja Turtles T-shirt and brought alcohol and a pack of condoms with him to the hotel.
Alger County Prosecutor Robert Steinhoff charged the following three counts:
Count 1. Accosting a Child for Immoral Purposes, a felony with a maximum penalty of 4 years in prison and/or $4,000. Conviction of this offense also carries requirements to register as a sex offender under the Michigan Sex Offender Registration Act.
Count 2. Use of a Computer to Commit a Crime, a felony with a maximum penalty of 7 years in prison.
Count 3. Selling/Furnishing Alcohol to a Minor, a misdemeanor with a mandatory $1000 fine and may be sentenced to 60 days imprisonment.
A cash bond of $100,000 was set.
The defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law. Hundreds of chats happened during the operation between undercover police officers and multiple persons interested in having sex with a minor.
“Thanks for the support of these operations! The top priority of our office is to protect our kids and the vulnerable who cannot protect themselves. These are great operations, led by great people.” Alger County Sheriff Todd Brock said.
This multi-jurisdictional operation included law enforcement agencies from Alger County Sheriff’s Office, Baraga County Sheriff’s Office, Houghton County Sheriff’s Office, Iron River Police Department.
Please come forward. If you or a loved one have been harmed by this male suspect in any way, or if you know of any other important information, please contact the Alger County Sheriff’s Office at (906) 387-4444.
Operational expenses were grant funded by the U.P. Human Trafficking Task Force. The U.P. HOST team was created by the Upper Peninsula Human Trafficking Task Force (UPHTTF), a nonprofit NGO that set forth the following goal to investigate & prosecute human trafficking cases at the local, state, and federal levels.
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