FORMER LO CHEERLEADER ON THE LAM

Faced with sex trafficking charges, 19-year-old Julia Lynn Haner flees house arrest

Haner, 19, was indicted by a federal grand jury in April on charges of sex trafficking of a minor and transporting the minor to Washington for the purpose of prostitution. She had been under house arrest at her mother’s residence when the FBI discovered that she was missing during the weekend of June 21-22.

Haner was indicted along with 30-year-old co-defendant Konrod Steven Mason on charges she recruited two women, a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old, to work as prostitutes. The incidents occurred from about Feb. 28 to March 11, according to the indictment.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Papak signed instructions for Haner’s transfer to house arrest on June 9. Under the terms of her release, she was placed under constant GPS monitoring. She was required to remain in Oregon, to abstain from drugs and alcohol, and to avoid contact with Mason.

Haner first came under police scrutiny in March as part of a sting operation conducted by the Portland Police Bureau’s Prostitution Coordination Team. A 17-year-old taken into custody during that operation told officers that she had begun living and working with Haner and Mason in late February after Haner, a former LOHS classmate, contacted the girl via Facebook.

The girl told police she was not initially aware that the work Haner offered was prostitution, but that she had then taken a number of prostitution jobs in Portland, Eugene and Vancouver, Wash., often accompanied by Haner. Haner later said she recruited the girl because she was lonely working by herself.

Although Mason and Haner had been interviewed by the FBI in late March, they were found just over a week later in a Beaverton hotel, trying to persuade a 20-year-old woman to engage in prostitution. The second recruit had competed with Haner on a cheerleading squad unaffiliated with LOHS, and although she had not started working for Haner and Mason, she told police a story similar to that of the 17-year-old.

Both had undergone an “initiation” that included sexual intercourse with Mason, an act which Mason allegedly termed a trust-building exercise. Both girls said Mason told them they were expected to give up everything and to cede control of their lives to him. According to court records, Mason told the victims they could make up to $4,000 a night working with Haner.

Haner attended LOHS during the 2011-12 school year and took a single class from 2012-13, but did not graduate. According to police, she left school and began working at strip clubs, then got into sex work after meeting Mason.

Haner’s father, Michael Haner, contends that Haner was manipulated by Mason and that, even after her arrest, his daughter seemed to be the victim of “brainwashing.”

“It was just kind of strange talking to her,” Michael Haner said. “It was a ‘I need to save my man, I need to save my man,’ type of thing.”