Sex Trafficking Suspect on Las Vegas Strip Threatens ‘Dominance’ Over Officer

A 25-year-old California man was arrested this week on suspicion of sex trafficking on the Las Vegas Strip. He threatened to choke an undercover officer, saying he wanted to “assert dominance” over her, according to a report.

Clifton Ligons, 25, of Pittsburg, is set to appear in Las Vegas Justice Court on June 29.  Pittsburg is near the Bay Area, east of San Francisco.

Ligons was arrested Sunday at 3:54 am in the 3500 block of the Strip, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The exact location of the arrest was not made available. Among the hotel-casinos in the area are Caesars Palace, the Flamingo Las Vegas, and the LINQ Hotel + Experience.

This is a known area to the vice section for being high in prostitution-related crimes,” the undercover officer wrote in an arrest report.

The officer wrote that she was posing in that area as “a person who would be believed to be a prostitute, wearing tight pants and crop top shirt.”

When the suspect approached her, she told him she was “just trying to make some money.”

Ligons told her she could make $1,000 in 24 hours and that he would use the firearm he had to protect her, according to the newspaper. He told the woman he would take half of her earnings as a prostitute.

Lunging toward her neck, Ligons said, “I’ll choke you right here,” according to the officer.

He later told a detective he threatened to choke her to “assert dominance.” He said he wasn’t a pimp, “but wanted to get whatever he could out of a female,” the newspaper reported.

This Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, known locally as Metro, recently launched an anti-crime initiative that Capt. Dori Koren calls Operation Persistent Pressure II.  

Over the past few weeks, Koren has tweeted numerous pictures of firearms and other weapons that Metro officers have confiscated on the Strip and nearby tourist areas. The weapons include and a bat wrapped in barbed wire like the one that a character named Negan uses in the televisions series The Walking Dead. 

Other pictures on Koren’s Twitter feed show illegal narcotics that police have confiscated during arrests in the resort corridor.

After a surge in violent incidents on the Strip last year, Metro implemented a crime suppression effort that officers referred to as Operation Persistent Pressure. The Nevada Highway Patrol assisted in the effort. 

Among other high-profile recent crimes on the Strip, two women were arrested earlier this year in separate incidents involving men who claimed they were drugged and had their luxury watches stolen.

Windy Rose Jones, 23, of Las Vegas was arrested on suspicion of drugging men at a Strip casino on two different occasions and stealing their expensive watches.

One man’s watch was a $37,000 Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. The other watch was a $45,000 Rolex Daytona.

Jones was released from jail while awaiting a court date in those incidents when a third man said she stole his $45,000 Rolex after a night of drinking that began at a Strip casino, police said. 

A second woman, Ashley Trahan, 33, was arrested on suspicion of drugging a man she met at a Las Vegas Strip casino. The man said she and $400 in cash.