Jackson Jambalaya

Sex toys, condoms and notebooks scribbled with names, phone numbers and dollar amounts were found Monday (July 11) in a New Orleans motel room authorities say was used by two accused sex traffickers.

U.S. Marshals located two New Orleans teenage girls, both of them juveniles who had been reported as missing to New Orleans police, outside the motel room before the arrests were made, court records show.

An arrest warrant for one of two suspects states agents with a U.S. Marshals task force and Department of Homeland Security encountered the missing juveniles, ages 15 and 16, around 6:30 p.m. Monday. Authorities spoke with and detained the girls after they exited a room at the Historic Streetcar Inn, 1509 St. Charles Ave., near the intersection with Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

After authorities detained the missing girls, a 36-year-old man, Pierre Smith, walked out of the motel with a 4-month-old baby, the warrant states. The 16-year-old girl told authorities she was the child's mother and that Smith was the child's father.

Also arrested was 38-year-old Angela Cagnolatti. Both she and Smith were arrested Monday and charged with two counts of child sex trafficking, records show. Cagnolatti was arrested after she pulled up to the scene where the two girls were detained in a white 2000 Lincoln Town Car with a Hinds County, Miss., license plate. ...

The warrant states the investigation revealed the two adults had been "moving from motel to motel around the city" with the girls. That story corroborated information the mother of the 15-year-old victim, who reported her daughter missing, told investigators Friday (July 8).

After Cagnolatti gave permission for investigators to search the motel room, the warrant reads, they recovered "several cellular phones," a laptop, "numerous sex toys," condoms, lubricant, "ledgers" and other paperwork. Included in the notebooks and paperwork were Backpage ads, names with corresponding phone numbers, times and "amount of money for those times," the warrant reads.

Backpage is a website known to be used as a classified listing for prostitution. Rest of this disgusting story.

Smith & Cagnolatti. Credit: Nola.com

Smith  was indicted last year for possession of cocaine and a firearm in Hinds County. He was represented by attorney Sanford Knott.  Judge William Gowan remanded the case after Smith agreed to enter a pre-trial intervention program.

Kingfish note: Remand usually means the prosecutor can bring the case back up again if the defendant gets into trouble during the term of the agreement.  One hopes such will happen in this case.