Couple Indicted in MySpace Teen Sex Case

(Queens, New York) A 22-year-old stripper, Sophie Soto, and her 31-year-old stripper husband, Julio Rojas, were arraigned last Saturday on 56 criminal counts resulting from multiple sexual incidents with two under-15-year-old girls during a six-month period between 2006 and 2007.

 
The variety of sex crimes, including statutory rape and sexual abuse, were announced yesterday by Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

"The defendants are accused of using the Internet to lure two obviously troubled young girls to their apartment where they were plied with liquor before being used to satisfy the defendants' own illicit carnal cravings," Brown said.

Soto allegedly portrayed herself as an 18-year-old virgin on MySpace seeking another girl to help her not be nervous when she had sex for the first time with a boy. A girl replied that she would help and bring along another girl. When the girls arrived at Soto's and Rojas' apartment, they were plied with booze and sexually abused.

Later that night, the couple took the girls, who were under 15 but were given fake identification cards, to a Manhattan strip club, where Soto and an exotic dancer dragged them on stage, slipped their clothes off and made them have oral sex with patrons, the district attorney said.

The couple has been booked into custody with Soto's bail set at $250,000 and Rojas' bail set at $500,000. A court appearance is scheduled for January 28.

Notably, MySpace.com administrators announced additional controls on the website's use on the same day of the announcement of charges against Soto and Rojas. District Attorney Brown stated the changes on MySpace will help in protecting the vulnerable from predators.