A child pornography investigation that began in Massachusetts has led to federal charges in Mississippi against a Georgia man accused of having sex with a girl who was 3 or 4 years old, according to a complaint filed Monday.
The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Miss., charges Marco Laquin Rogers, 26, of Atlanta, with sexual exploitation of a child.
The complaint says a child pornography investigation and the Sept. 6 arrest of another man, Jeremy Atral Hodges, 25, of Cambridge, Mass., led authorities to Rogers.
The criminal complaint in Rogers’ case says that Hodges and Rogers both had sex with the child at a Jackson hotel on May 25, but the complaint charges only Rogers with a crime. A video of the assault shows the girl crying out in pain, according to an affidavit that accompanies the complaint.
Court records said both Hodges and Rogers are originally from Mississippi, but have been living in other states.
Hodges faces a pornography possession charge in Massachusetts. Stephanie Guyotte, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex County district attorney’s office in Massachusetts, said Hodges was arraigned Sept. 7 and released to home confinement on a $1,000 bond. He’s required to wear a GPS tracking device and can’t have contact with children or use a computer, she said.
An affidavit in the complaint against Rogers, written by a Homeland Security Investigations agent, said the investigation began after Hodges asked another man in Massachusetts if he liked young girls and showed him explicit images of children on his cellphone.
Hodges told the man that he knows someone who had “hooked him up with a couple of young girls,” the affidavit said. The man kicked Hodges out of his house and called police, according to court records.
The complaint says Rogers was listed under the name “Black Perv” in Hodges’ phone. Hodges allegedly told authorities that Rogers had access to a 3-year-old girl he uses for “sexual acts.” The complaint also said Rogers travels with the child between Atlanta, Jackson and Memphis, Tenn., but didn’t say why.
The complaint said authorities served Rogers with a court order on Sept. 28 compelling him to allow agents to photograph scars on his stomach and right leg to match them to scars on one of the men in the video.
The affidavit said Rogers works at a hospital in Atlanta, but didn’t say which one or what kind of job he does.
