Washington Child Sex Trafficker Pleads Guilty In Federal Court

A Washington man pleaded guilty Monday to trafficking girls for sexual activity, according to federal court records.

David Peter Vier, who was arrested in Little America after a multi-state manhunt in January, entered the plea to the two-count indictment before U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss at his Oct. 22 sentencing one count of being a registered sex offender involving a minor.

Conviction of the single count is punishable by a minimum of 10 years imprisonment and five years to lifetime supervision upon release from custody, according to federal sentencing guidelines. He also will be ordered to pay $5,100 -- $5,000 to the Victims of Trafficking Act and a $100 special assessment.

He remains in custody.

The case began on Jan. 20 when Sweetwater County Sheriff's deputies arrested Vier at Little America west of Green River on Interstate 80 after receiving a report from an employee at the Little America Hotel in Green River about two girls hiding from a man, according to law enforcement reports.

According to an FBI affidavit, an unidentified person from Kansas reported the girls were being taken from Washington to Kansas.

Law enforcement officers found the girls and Vier at the restaurant. Vier was taken into custody and questioned. The Wyoming Highway Patrol placed the girls in protective custody.

The girls told law enforcement officers their mother recently had kicked them out of their house and they met Vier at a home improvement store in Seattle. He agreed to drive them to Little America in Cheyenne, about halfway to Wichita, Kan., for $100. Before leaving, the girls had a conversation about sex partners and Vier agreed to be their sex partner, according to the affidavit.

A Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office news release said Vier told the girls that he was going to have sex with them when they arrived at the hotel. The girls agreed they had to run when they arrived because they feared they would be sexually assaulted. When they escaped from Vier, they took his cell phone to call for help.

After Vier's arrest, law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant and searched his pickup.

They found a large duffel bag with restraint items including handcuffs, tape, sex aids, mouth gags, whips, clamps, a dog collar and leash, and three large fixed-blade knives. Officers also found a partially used vial of Amidate used for general anesthesia; and a partially used bottle of Diphenhydramine, an antihistamine with one use being inducing sleep.

A news release from the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office in February said the Seattle Times reported Vier is a former Everett, Wash., firefighter and paramedic. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and promoting prostitution.