Published on: July 30, 2022, 08:35am.
Last update: July 30, 2022, 8:35am.
The teenage girls headed to the Foxwoods Resort Casino with a 27-year-old man earlier this week before police stopped them. The girls were runaways and the man was later arrested in Connecticut.
Phillip A. Tanner pictured above. He was charged after traveling to a Connecticut casino with runaway girls, police said. (Image: Ledyard Police)
Phillip A. Tanner, 27, of Torrington, Conn., was charged with three counts of risk of injury to a minor, The Day, a Connecticut newspaper, reported. He allegedly picked up the girls and another young woman in Ledyard, Connecticut.
They were headed to the nearby Foxwoods Casino to meet other people, police said. Authorities did not specify what activities the girls will participate in once at the casino.
Police stopped a car in the middle of the night on Route 2 in Preston, Conn., The Day said. The girls were passengers.
The girls were 13, 14 and 15 years old, according to court records. They were in the care of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.
One of the teenagers was described in court documents as “a chronic runaway with an extensive history of possible human trafficking,” local television station WFSB reported.
It’s unclear how old the fourth woman was, although one news report identified her as a teenager.
The suspect remains in jail
Tanner was being held on $100,000 bond at Connecticut’s Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center as of Saturday. He was arraigned Wednesday in Superior Court in New London, Connecticut.
During a court appearance, Judge Kevin Shay said he was “very concerned” about the case, WFSB said.
The judge ordered Tanner to avoid visits to Connecticut casinos, to avoid a youth home in Ledyard where one or more of the girls lived and ruled that Tanner cannot have any contact with the girls, according to the report. Tanner is scheduled to return to court on August 31.
Unbelievable story
Tanner told police he was driving to Foxwoods to meet one of the girl’s boyfriends, according to the report. He also claimed he didn’t know they were minors. Tanner previously picked up one of the girls before this week’s incident, authorities said.
This story does not seem believable. It seems troubling in the day and age of so much sex and human trafficking,” Shay added, according to WFSB. “Even if that’s not what’s going on, to pick up four neighborhoods in the state at this time and bring los in a casino seems to be a risk of injury in itself, even if there are no other things.”
Prior to his recent appointment as a state judge, Shay was an Assistant Connecticut State Attorney and a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. He also previously worked as an attorney for Connecticut Legal Services.