OKLAHOMA CITY – A man was arrested after responded to an online escort ad for female officers posing as prostitutes.
On March 28, the Oklahoma City Police Department Vice Unit placed online escort ads for female officers posing as prostitutes. The ads had a phone number listed for prospective “johns” to call.
Police say a man, later identified as Derek Byrd, contacted the number listed in one of the ads and exchanged a series of texts with whom he thought was a female escort.
According to an affidavit, “the john’s text messages demonstrated that he had a great deal of knowledge about the escort profession,” and that “the topics discussed by the john included other well-known prostitution/escort oriented websites and lingo commonly used by known prostitutes and prostitution clients.”
Byrd then arranged to meet the female undercover office at her hotel where he paid her $100, took off his shoes, socks, and some of his clothing, and “attempted to remove the undercover officer’s tank top.”
That’s when detectives arrived at the room and discovered that Byrd had a flip phone in his possession that did not have the internet. It was later discovered, after Byrd told detectives he did not know the number to the flip phone, that he had a second cell phone in his vehicle, a smartphone.
Detectives say Byrd used the flip phone to call another phone number that was associated with an online escort ad.
He was booked for use of a computer for the purpose of violating Oklahoma statues and offering to engage in an act of lewdness.
