Ava, MO. – Two adults that were charged for child sex trafficking in the Ava area have pled guilty in court and sentencing is ongoing.
Shawna Ross and Robert Atherton were arrested after the deconstruction of the former home of Harold Blair uncovered multiple photos of children performing various sexual acts. Blair has been charged in federal court for his crimes and Ross and Atherton were charged locally.
Ross has taken an Alford Plea for the charge of sexual trafficking of a child under age 18 years and is to be sentenced on February 6, 2024. The court dropped the charges of statutory rape, statutory sodomy, and three counts of tampering with a victim in a felony prosecution.
Atherton took a plea deal on October 17, 2023, on one count of statutory sodomy-deviant sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 14 and has been sentenced to 30 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections. As part of the plea deal, the court dropped three charges against Atherton.
According to probable cause statements, Ross is the mother of two girls who were minors at the time they were forced to have sex with Blair and their father. One of the minors involved in the case came forward with information on the three adults on December 28th, 2022 and spoke with investigators from Homeland Security.
Court documents say Ross knew that the girls’ father and Blair had an agreement that the girls would perform sexual acts in exchange for living with him between 2010 and 2011. During this time, the statement of the minor says the two minor female children were anally and vaginally raped by the two men and were forced to perform oral sex on the men.
