Federal and state prosecutors on Tuesday charged an alleged street pimp with multiple criminal counts, even as Draper police have located a "number" of possible additional victims and continue to look for more.
Arash Alexander Zarif made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court late Tuesday on seven charges — possession of child pornography, four counts of enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution, possession of a firearm by a restricted person and possession of methamphetamine.
Zarif, 29, was also charged Tuesday in Salt Lake's 3rd District Court with six state crimes, including felony sexual exploitation of a minor, aggravated exploitation of prostitution and misdemeanor supplying alcohol to a minor.
Zarif is scheduled to return to federal court Thursday afternoon for a detention hearing. He is currently in the Salt Lake County Jail on state charges of sexual exploitation of a minor, running a house of prostitution and sexual activity with a minor.
Investigators believe Zarif allegedly hired teenaged girls, mostly those who were homeless, runaways or already in precarious situations, and paid them to perform sexual acts on unknown adult males.
Many of the alleged prostitution acts occurred at Zarif's South Mountain condo. The alleged operation came to light when two 16-year-old girls, allegedly paid by Zarif to perform sex acts on three men, stepped forward.
According to the federal complaint, Zarif told one of the teenage girls she could make up to $300 a night working for him.
Two computers, two video cameras and about 30 packages that appeared to all contain CDs or videotapes were also seized from Zarif's home. Court documents indicate Zarif admitted to having made videos of girls in his home but said he didn't believe the girls to be underage. However, according to the documents, officers recognized the two 16-year-old girls, and other females who appeared to be 15 to 16 years old, on videos seized from Zarif's home.
Draper police Sgt. Gerry Allred said his detectives have been busy interviewing an undisclosed number of other females, all juveniles, to see if they were indeed also victims as they claimed.
If convicted of the federal charges, Zarif would face substantial prison time. The production of child pornography charge and enticement charges each carry a maximum of 30 years behind bars with a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence.
E-mail: awelling@desnews.com,