A Greene County man drove a young teen who had been reported missing to West Virginia for sex, according to a federal grand jury.
James Jordan, 30, appeared by video on Tuesday in U.S. District Court on three counts related to the incident on Jan. 11 and 12 of last year and on Nov. 18, 2021.
The grand jury indicted him on Dec. 13 under seal, and the case was unsealed Tuesday following his arraignment.
Jordan, of Waynesburg, had previously been charged in state court with kidnapping a 14-year-old girl who had been reported missing following an investigation by Waynesburg police.
Officers reported the girl as a runaway on Jan. 11 after her grandmother said she’d taken her Jeep Cherokee, money and phone. The grandmother said she believed Jordan had taken the girl.
Working with the cellphone company, police located the phone in Lewisburg, W. Va., and found the girl with Jordan there.
Jordan is charged with travel with intent to engage in illicit sex, transporting the minor for sex and receiving material depicting sexual exploitation of a minor.
The last charge pertains to Nov. 18, 2021, when the grand jury said Jordan received digital files of the girl engaged in sexually explicit activity.
In addition to Waynesburg police and their counterparts in Lewisburg, the case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the state attorney general’s office and Pennsylvania state troopers.
The Jordan case is the latest example of an increasing number of sex trafficking prosecutions in the Western District of Pennsylvania and across the country.
When police initially arrested Jordan, Greene County District Attorney David Russo praised law officers for their quick work and said in a statement that human trafficking and child abduction “are a severe problem affecting all of our communities.”
Jordan remains in federal custody pending a detention hearing.
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
