Ex-Cal State Bakersfield assistant to face trial in pimping case
Kevin Mays, a former Cal State Bakersfield assistant basketball coach accused of pimping and different offenses, will face trial after a California decide dominated Wednesday that there’s ample proof to prosecute him.
Mays faces felony and misdemeanor legal prices that embody pimping and possession of automated firearms, medication and little one pornography. Mays had pleaded not responsible on all prices.
Mays allegedly possessed greater than 600 photos of youth or little one pornography and distributed obscene matter involving somebody underneath 18 years previous. A police forensic examiner testified Tuesday that 28 movies discovered on Mays’ cellphone, time-stamped between 2022 and 2024, depicted sexual conduct with a minor.
Judge Eric Bradshaw presided over the listening to Tuesday and Wednesday after one other decide was recused from the case for unexplained causes. After listening to hours of testimony from varied police investigators and specialists, Bradshaw acknowledged that there’s “sufficient cause to believe that the defendant committed these offenses.”
Police testified concerning the relationship between Mays and a lady who allegedly labored as a prostitute underneath his management. They and Kern County prosecutor Christine Antonios offered particulars about ads, cellphone and textual content exchanges, automobile leases, and different points of what investigators alleged was a prostitution operation protecting no less than three however presumably 4 states.
In addition, the investigators offered express particulars of kid pornography they discovered on Mays’ cellphone plus medication and automated weapons discovered in his automobile and condo.
The investigation adopted an Aug. 29 nameless electronic mail handed on to police by one other staffer at Cal State Bakersfield.
In the August nameless electronic mail despatched to Rod Barnes, the boys’s basketball coach on the time, the tipster alleged that Mays was working as a pimp throughout 4 states and recognized a lady Mays allegedly had trafficked for a number of months.
According to police information and testimony, they discovered the lady by a web based intercourse commercial and ran a sting operation by scheduling a “date” together with her in a Sacramento lodge room they later decided had been rented by Mays.
At the listening to, police recognized the alleged sufferer and testified that she had engaged in prostitution in California, Oregon and Las Vegas. Another witness alleged that the exercise additionally occurred in a fourth state.
Anthony Figueroa, a detective with the Sacramento Police Department, testified that, when interviewed by police, the lady had mentioned that Mays coated the prices for condoms, rental autos, resorts and flights when she traveled for intercourse work.
Mays had additionally promised to get her into faculty, in accordance to police testimony, and should have rented a Cal State Bakersfield basketball participant’s condo to the alleged sufferer.
David Torres, Mays’ lawyer, questioned the police characterization of Mays’ and the lady’s relationship as pimp and prostitute and alleged that she had engaged in intercourse work for 5 years earlier than assembly Mays.
Torres requested the decide to dismiss the pimping and pandering prices and mentioned that this was the “chosen profession” of the alleged sufferer. He identified to police testimony that she has continued her business intercourse work.
Prosecutor Antonios additionally offered Mays’ textual content exchanges with one other girl who instructed police that she had met Mays whereas courting a Cal State Bakersfield basketball participant. A police officer testified that, in an interview, the lady mentioned Mays had reached out to her on social media. She mentioned that he spoke to her about creating accounts on business intercourse web sites.
Mays’ subsequent listening to date is ready for April 7.
Mays’ lawyer and a spokesperson for the Kern County District Attorney’s Office declined remark to ESPN.
