KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A northwest Missouri commercial truck driver has been convicted of transporting a minor across state lines for prostitution.
The U.S. attorney's office says 55-year-old Tony Eugene Wardlow, of St. Joseph, was found guilty Wednesday. The self-employed driver was registered as a sex offender after he was convicted in 1997 in Nodaway County of crimes involving two children.
Prosecutors said Wardlow paid the minor victim for sex on multiple occasions while she was working as a prostitute in Kansas City. He also took her out of town in his truck on several occasions, including a 2011 Texas trip that involved prostitution activity. A co-defendant who accompanied them to Texas pleaded guilty in February to aiding and abetting Wardlow.
Wardlow faces up to a sentence of life in federal prison without parole.