AUBURN — A Lewiston woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to sex trafficking, minutes before the start of her trial.

Tina Lagasse, 52, of 527 Main St. is expected to be sentenced on the Class D misdemeanor next month. Maximum punishment for the crime is 364 days in jail.

Lagasse is free on personal recognizance bail, but is barred from having contact with two witnesses in the case, one of whom is identified as the victim.

Her attorney, Paul Corey, told the judge that a jury could have found her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence prosecutors were prepared to present at trial.

The case stems from an internet advertisement for prostitution that was noticed by an Auburn police detective last summer. The image showed Lagasse with a young woman who was later identified as a former Auburn high school student.

According to a police report, a Westbrook Police Department sergeant posed as a customer, texting the phone number on the ad; Lagasse answered. She texted back that the younger woman pictured with her was 17 years old and that “I don’t sell children.”

The officer called back and made an appointment with Lagasse for paid sex; she gave him her home address.

Three officers arrived at her home and questioned her about the ad and the teen pictured with her in the ad.

Lagasse told them she encountered the teen near Poirier’s Market on Walnut Street early in the morning of July 29. The girl was selling herself on the street and Lagasse befriended her and told her there was “a better way to make money.”

She took the teen to her home, suspecting she was a minor, and told her to take a shower because the girl was dirty, Lagasse told police.

She said she gave the girl a dress to wear, in which the teen was pictured, but didn’t take the photo and didn’t post it online.

Lagasse told police she gave the teen $10 and told her to go home. The detective wrote that the bedroom in the home was the backdrop for the photo in the ad.

Lagasse later called one of the officers and admitted to having misled police about the victim, whom she had met on a different street and had told her she’d had sex for money.

An Auburn high school principal told police the girl had been a student.

A subpoena to the online advertisement company showed the ad had been posted after the girl’s 18th birthday.

During a follow-up interview with Lagasse, she said a different woman had taken the photo that appeared in the ad and she had proposed posting an ad on the website.

Police visited the girl’s home and talked to her. She said she had “bumped” into Lagasse near Poirier’s Market after leaving a friend’s house. Lagasse had come up to her and told her she looked familiar. She said Lagasse took her to her home. She said Lagasse’s son took the photo. She said she hadn’t known what the purpose of the photo had been.

Then she said they were supposed to do “sexual stuff” to earn money, specifically, oral sex. She said Lagasse had taken the “majority” of the proceeds. She said she’d never performed that act before and that the client was “really old.” She said she had earned $60 of the $200 that Lagasse had charged the man they had both serviced in Lagasse’s bedroom.

The victim said she went along with the act because it was “quick money, right on the spot.” She told police she had “felt bad about doing it and wouldn’t do it again,” according to the report.

She said she didn’t know of any girls who were being forced to perform sexual acts.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com

Tina Lagasse (Androscoggin County Jail)