Dave Zone is a familiar voice from Coconino County. For over a decade on local cuff news radio, he has covered local sports, a reliable voice, and has appeared on city councillors online, in this video His record in 2022.
He hosted student spelling bees and voiced the region’s most important news, including last November’s election, emergency fire evacuation and crime.
Last Thursday, police say they were arrested during an investigation into child sex trafficking in Arizona’s High Country.
The incident began six months ago, when the North Star Task Force, a law enforcement agency, began a series of investigations in northern Arizona. Six men have been arrested on felony sex trafficking charges of children. Three other people, including Zorn, were accused of sexual exploitation and seducing minors for felony.
Kaff News said in a statement The zone was placed on vacation as soon as the station was informed of his arrest.
Police say they have not yet discussed the details of the allegations. However, the incident is cold in its intimacy. Zone taught until his arrest at Northern Arizona University, covering the local high school team in detail.
“There’s a misconception that a lot of this crime comes from outside, but that’s absolutely not true,” said Bethany Hyde, the lead detective of the task force. “It’s people that have been embedded in our community for years. Some of them have even been born and raised in Flagstaff for over 40 years.”
Michelle Rucker is the executive director of human trafficking services at the Northland Family Help Center and is a local nonprofit that works with the police. She said law enforcement long ago recognized the need for cooperation in trafficking in northern Arizona.
“Human trafficking doesn’t look like what we saw in movies or on television,” she said.
Katherine Davis Yong/kjzz
And that’s even more true in rural areas like Coconino County.
“It’s going to be indoors. In a residential environment, I’m going to go to hotels and motels. It’s going to be underground,” Rucker said.
Like Hyde, she emphasized that many of the people accused were local residents.
“That means it is our sons, daughters, nie and nephew that are targeted by these perpetrators for sexual exploitation,” Rucker said.
Hyde said he hopes the incident will bring awareness to parents of the type of threat they face.
“In addition to giving teens freedom, it also finds a balance between monitoring the person they are talking to and the type of conversation they have,” she said.
The judge ordered a $100,000 bond from Zorn. The other defendants were given a bond of $250,000.
“We knew for a while that there were people in our community, sometimes hidden by the obvious vision of committing these crimes, and that’s what the North Star Task Force aimed to better cooperate in these types of investigations,” said Ammon Barker, Coconino County attorney.
“We thought we would find some people in these stab wounds, and we did.”
Barker said law enforcement training emphasizes that child exploitation cases are common across the country. “It’s a sad commentary on the state of society and how people create this market where people seek these things and exploit these things and exploit children.”
The following are the felony charges:
- Max Berkman, Child Sex Trafficking
- Rakesh Dullbson invites minors for sexual exploitation
- Michael E. Flores invites minors for sexual exploitation
- Christopher Hoffman, child trafficking
- Abel Ramos, child sex trafficking
- Thomas Jay Smith, child trafficking
- Brent William Smith, Child Sex Trafficking
- Marcus Wimberley, Child Sex Trafficking
- David Zone invites minors for sexual exploitation
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to fix transcription errors in quotes by Michelle Rucker.
