Six people have been arrested in a child trafficking ring in Jefferson County, based out of a Lakewood apartment complex.

First Judicial District Attorney Peter Weir announced on Feb. 13 that five men and one woman have been arrested as part of a child human trafficking ring operating in Jefferson County.

Alleged ringleader Daniel Byron Onodera, 42, has been charged with Trafficking of a Child (F2); Pimping of a Child (F3); Sex Assault of a Child (F3); Solicitation of a Child for Prostitution (F3); Pandering (F3); Keeping a place of Child Prostitution (F3); Child Prostitution — Inducement (F3), Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor (F4); and two violent crime counts.

Five others have been arrested and they have been charged according to their alleged participation: Marshall Deron Ashton, 31, Nickolas Alan Silk, 23, Kevin J. Snuggs, 26, Pamela Jean Lewis, 57, and Zelian Ashbury Shaw, 20.

A seventh member of the alleged child trafficking ring has been identified as Mark Wayne Turturice, 54. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

“These charges are the culmination of a lengthy investigation that was started by an extraordinarily brave 16-year-old girl,” Weir said. “She reached out to authorities about sexual assault, which lead to a much more pervasive group of criminal activity.”

According to information provided by Weir’s office, the investigation started in November 2012, when one of the victims reported to a counselor that she had been sexually assaulted by a man named Daniel, who was later identified as Onodera, the alleged ringleader of the child prostitution ring.

The arrests of these individuals are the result of a joint operation of the FBI’s Innocence Lost Task Force, Lakewood Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office.

The criminal activity is alleged to have been based out of the Timberleaf Apartments at 1388 Garrison, in Lakewood, between December 2011 and November 2012.

According to information provided by Weir’s office, one or more of the defendants leased, or lived in, apartments at the complex where the victims were invited, or taken, and given drugs. Two of the victims are alleged to have been sexually assaulted by members of the organization and were also forced to have sex with strangers while Onodera or other member of the prostitution ring received money or drugs in payment.

“The defendants appeared to have identified girls who were runaways as potential targets and ensnared them and compelled them to perform these acts,” Weir said. “That force came in the form of feeding methamphetamine habits or physical abuse.”

There were three female victims identified in this operation, one was 13 and two were 16 years old at the time. The girls did not know each other but had similarities. They had each run away from home, were truant from school and each had been lured into the prostitution net by drugs, according to Weir’s office.

Katie Kurtz, assistant Jeffco District Attorney and lead prosecuter in the case against the defendants said that the next steps will be a filing of charges, followed by preliminary hearings, and then the cases will go to district court.

Onodera, Lewis, and Ashton were in court on Feb. 19 to be advised of the charges filed against them. Snuggs will be in court on February 28. Silk and Shaw were arrested in Denver on the Jeffco warrants and will be transported to the Jefferson County Detention Center.

“We want to bring a broader awareness about human trafficking in the community,” Kurtz said. “There are groups that work to identify juveniles who could be at a high risk for being victims and prevent this, as well as help those who may already have been victimized.”

Weir said that it is important to make Jeffco residents aware that this is not an isolated case, and things like this are continuing to happen not just in Jeffco, but all over the Denver metro area.

Through collaborations with schools, mental health center and other organizations, law enforcement is working to provide all the services possibly to help.

“These kinds of things are happening in the community, and when we make these kinds of arrests, we will prosecute as aggressively as we can,” he said.

Anyone with information about Turturice or about the ring should contact the Lakewood Police Department at 303-987-7111.