MIAMI – Miami police say they arrested a suburban Atlanta man late Thursday night after a car chase, crash and foot pursuit after he brought a 15-year-old girl from the Peach State to South Florida — after having likely “groomed” her for sex trafficking.
According to the Miami Police Department, the teenager was in the car with 39-year-old Sterling Henderson and “severely injured” when he wrecked it in the city’s Edgewater neighborhood.
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An MPD arrest report states that Henderson, of Decatur, Georgia, insinuated in a police interview that he may have raped the victim at one point.
The report states that investigators with Georgia’s DeKalb County Police Department contacted Miami-Dade Police Department detectives informing them that Henderson had “enticed” the girl to come to Miami without her parents’ consent and said she was “likely being groomed for human trafficking.”
According to a Georgia arrest warrant, the girl told her mother via Instagram that she was “with an older man in Miami” and asked her to send money.
MDPD detectives contacted the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and informed them that the girl may have been in Miami’s Omni area and then involved the city’s police department, the report states.
According to police, a Miami-Dade detective spotted Henderson’s vehicle downtown, near Northeast First Street and Third Avenue, at around 11:30 p.m.
Henderson — with the girl in the back seat — saw the county officer and threw the white SUV into reverse and sped off, police said.
A city police officer in a marked cruiser later spotted Henderson in the area of Biscayne Boulevard and Northeast Sixth Avenue and attempted to pull him over, the report states, leading to a chase.
Police said Henderson blew through several traffic lights and struck several light poles along Biscayne Boulevard, one of which hit another driver. The report states he crashed after trying to make a left turn onto Northeast 17th Terrace.
Henderson climbed through the sunroof and ran, leaving the seriously-hurt girl behind, police said. The report states the injured teen “dragged herself out of the sunroof” and was later taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital with a hip injury.
A foot chase with Henderson ended in the area of Northeast Second Avenue and 17th Terrace, police said, and officers had to use a Taser on him.
Under questioning, police said Henderson told detective he “plea(d)s the Fifth” after being asked “if he was having sex” with the girl.
Authorities arrested Henderson on a slew of felony charges, including leaving the scene of a crash causing serious bodily injury, child neglect causing great bodily harm, attempted interference with custody and fleeing and eluding a police officer.
He also faces misdemeanor charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and resisting arrest, plus traffic citations for driving without a license and reckless driving.
Henderson was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Friday morning.
The office of State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle issued a statement Friday on Henderson’s arrest:
“As we know from spearheading our local efforts to end the scourge of Human Trafficking, having effective law enforcement partnerships is the only way to impact this almost invisible crime. In cases such as this one where we see a 39 year-old man with a 15 year-old minor victim, we commonly find that they may be grooming them for commercial sexual exploitation.
We are proud to have been able to assist the Dekalb County, Georgia law enforcement agencies who sought our help to bring this young girl home before something awful occurred. I’m glad that the Miam-Dade Police Department and my Human Trafficking Task Force were able to intercept Sterling Henderson and save this child before it was too late.”