Man charged for making child porn, suspected of human trafficking

A Detroit man being investigated for fraud is charged with producing and distributing child porn and sex trafficking.

When police moved in to bust him, they found a woman chained to a stripper pole in his house, they suspect she may have been held as a sex slave.

What began as a fraud case turned into a sex crimes case. Investigators say Ryon Travis had a woman chained up to a stripper's pole inside his house for weeks.

And that is not the worst of what's said to have happened in the house. No one answered the door at 16255 Tuller Friday evening.

According to this affidavit, Ryon Lenell Travis not only distributed, but produced child pornography here.

It all began early March when West Bloomfield police raided Travis's home in connection to fraud allegations. When they searched his phone they phone pictures of a man engaged in sex acts with a child.

Travis told investigators it's his daughter.

Neighbors like Robert Williams were unnerved and say they wish they had known what was happening  so they could stop it.

"It doesn't make any sense to mess up a child like that for the rest of their life," Williams said. "In a case like that (if) I would caught the son of a (expletive) I would have done something to him myself."

Travis was not alone when the West Bloomfield police raided his home in March, three other women said to be his wives were with him. 

Homeland Security agents found a woman chained to a stripper pole when they raided his home March 28.

"When they went inside, they found a living room with, I think the best word for it is a stripper pole in the living room," said Sara Woodward, assistant U.S. attorney. "And there was a third woman chained at the neck to the stripper pole sitting in the living room."

That woman told agents Travis had been prostituting her along with the three other women advertising them online and in chat rooms.

Travis tried to dump his lawyer during a detention hearing in federal court then tried to get the case thrown out.

"All laws are commercial in nature and I'm a natural born human American man," Travis said in court. "So since all laws are commercial in nature and I choose not to do business with this court, I ask that this case be dismissed."

Judge: "Your request is denied."

Travis is facing three child porn charges  that alone could land him behind bars for at least 15 years.

On top of that, the US attorney's office plans to charge him with sex trafficking.