Charges: Online Ad Soliciting Sex Was Robbery Scheme

Two Apple Valley men are charged with felony robbery for allegedly being part of a scheme that lured a man to an Apple Valley apartment thinking he would be paying for sexual favors, only to be robbed.

Abdoul Said Kone, 22, and Kris Laymar Ewing, 22, each are charged with simple robbery, the maximum penalty for which is 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint against Kone, a man called and told them he had responded to an ad offering sexual services placed on backpages.com, and arranged to meet the woman from the ad at an Apple Valley apartment on June 27.

The man said the woman led him to the apartment's bedroom once he arrived, and he told her he was willing to pay a little more than $100 for the services, but she left the room, the complaint says.

Then, the man told police, three men came into the room and started reaching into his pockets; when he resisted, they allegedly pushed him against the wall and started hitting him, the complaint says.

They told him to take off his shirt, shorts and hat, and when he did they allegedly asked where his money and valuables were, according to the complaint. He told police the shortest man had a small knife and threatened to kill him if he didn't give them money.

The three allegedly took his money and phone, then told the man they would kill him if he left; then they left. The man told police he dressed and waited 15 minutes, then left through a bedroom window.

The man drove with police to what he said was the location of the incident, the complaint says, where apartment managers let them into the apartment, which wasn't being rented.

Police looked at the Facebook account of Ewing, one of the previous two tenants of the apartment, and found a picture from the day of the incident, with Kone tagged as one of the two men in the picture.

Investigators found the female, a minor, with whom the backpages.com ad was associated, and when they called her she told police she was associated with the ad, the complaint says.

She allegedly told police that when she got a response to the ad, she would call her friends, Ewing and another man, the complaint says. Then, they would go to the apartment and rob the person responding to the ad, she allegedly said.

She told police that was what had happened the day of June 27 with the man who had called police, according to the complaint. She said after she let him in and left the room, Ewing, Kone and her other friend went into the bedroom. She allegedly heard them tell the man to take off his pants and be quiet, and yelling at him, she said.

An investigator found Kone on July 24, the complaint says, who gave police a statement that he was one of the men in the Facebook picture from the day of the incident, that he knows his friend used to live at the apartment and had met him there before, according to the complaint.

He initially told police he hadn't gone to the apartment that day, but allegedly said later that he had gone but waited outside in his car, the complaint says.

He said the other men were gone so long that he then went inside to find them, according to the complaint. The apartment was dark and empty, he told police, so he waited for a minute then asked his friend who formerly lived there why the apartment was empty.

Kone said he then told them he had to go home, the complaint says, and they left.