A missing Texas child was rescued in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after federal authorities alerted local detectives that the child might be trafficked for prostitution. Calcasieu Parish sheriff’s investigators found the child Wednesday, September 23rd, and arrested two Texas residents. One of them, Justin C. Momah, was already on parole for a prostitution-related felony conviction in Texas. Both suspects now face charges that include trafficking a child for sexual purposes.
The tip came from the FBI and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, according to an account of the sheriff’s investigation. It reached detectives with the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit, who were told the missing child was believed to be in the Lake Charles area. Investigators located the child. The child was then placed in the custody of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Deputies arrested Sara E. Palacios, 48, of Houston, and Momah, 36, of Sugar Land, Texas. The two were booked into the Calcasieu Correctional Center on charges of human trafficking and trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Those are the charges filed in the Louisiana case; neither suspect has yet been convicted of them. Bonds were pending when the arrests were reported Thursday.
The Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office announced the arrests after the child was found. KPLC reported that the Combined Anti-Drug Task Force, the sheriff’s Special Operations Group and Real Time Crime Center, and Homeland Security Investigations assisted with the investigation. Their involvement put local and federal resources behind the search for a child reported missing in another state.
Momah’s prior conviction gives the new arrest a troubling dimension. Authorities say he was convicted in Texas in 2022 of aggravated promotion of prostitution, is registered there as a sex offender, and remains on parole until 2032. Under Texas law, aggravated promotion of prostitution involves knowingly owning, financing, controlling, supervising, or managing a prostitution enterprise involving at least two people engaged in prostitution, and the statute classifies it as a first-degree felony. His earlier conviction is separate from the allegations concerning the child found Wednesday.
Watch the local coverage of the arrests here:
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Federal prosecutors have documented child sex trafficking cases crossing the Texas–Louisiana state line before. In a 2022 case, a Houston man and a woman from Orange, Texas, were sentenced after a 14-year-old girl from Lake Charles was taken into Texas. Prosecutors said the man contacted the girl and picked her up in Louisiana. He took her to Texas, where both defendants tried to draw her into prostitution.
Another federal case established that a Houston-based trafficker operated in cities across Texas and Louisiana. In 2024, Larry Lewis was sentenced to 40 years in prison. A jury found that he forced four women into commercial sex and coerced three to cross state lines for prostitution. That case involved adults and has no reported connection to Palacios or Momah, but it shows that interstate trafficking between the two states has been established in court for years.
The current investigation began with a lead about one missing child. It led to that child being placed in protective custody and two suspects being arrested. The sheriff’s office has publicly named Palacios and Momah in connection with the case. Each faces the same two Louisiana trafficking charges, while Momah remains on parole in Texas for his 2022 conviction.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.