Plea Deal In RI In Mass. Teen Sex Trafficking Case

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Missouri man has agreed to plead guilty to charges that he took a 17-year-old girl from Massachusetts to Rhode Island with the intent of selling her for sex.

Authorities say 30-year-old Stephen Ardrey took the developmentally delayed girl from a library in Medfield, Mass., in September. She was found a few days later in Coventry, R.I., after someone saw her walking with Ardrey.

Ardrey, of Springfield, Mo., was arrested and has been in federal custody since then.

In a plea agreement entered this week in federal court in Providence, Ardrey agrees to plead guilty to trafficking a minor and transporting a minor to engage in sex.

He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

The charges carry a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison.