OAKLAND — A man and his girlfriend — who allegedly forced an 18-year-old woman to make money as a sex worker and kidnapped her baby to make her comply — have been criminally charged, according to authorities and court records.
The child, a seven-month-old girl, was recovered unharmed.
Messiah Koran Mayfield, 24, and Adajah Featherstone, 27, both of Oakland, are charged with kidnapping for ransom, human trafficking for commercial sex and pandering by encouragement. The counts include several enhancements, including one that the crimes involved violence and/or bodily harm. The pair were arrested May 3 and are each being held on $150,000 bail at Santa Rita Jail. They are scheduled to enter pleas to the charges on Monday.
The 18-year-old woman’s ordeal began April 30 after she and the suspects started communicating on social media and she and her daughter came to their Oakland home, authorities said.
According to the records, the suspects demanded the woman earn at least $100 by performing sex work in exchange for money on Oakland’s notorious “Blade” stroll in East Oakland. They dropped her off on the Blade and kept her daughter with them, the records say. They also took her cell phone, authorities said.
The woman was reluctant to exchange sex for money and apparently did not have any clients, authorities said. When the suspects returned to the area later that night, they became upset when they found that she had not made any money and demanded she pay them $500 in order to get her daughter back, the records say.
They left and the woman did not see them again until the night of May 1, when they confronted her near 12th Avenue and International Boulevard, and Featherstone severely beat her, according to the records.
The woman was taken to a hospital, where police were notified of the attack by staff and learned details from the woman about what had happened.
Officers located and arrested the suspects in East Oakland and were told the child was at a Hayward residence, where she was found. She was later reunited with her mother.
According to court records, Mayfield has a July 2023 felony conviction in Alameda County for second degree robbery for which he was on probation. Featherstone has a prior felony conviction in Sacramento County In October 2024 for vandalism by graffiti causing $400 or more in damage for which she was put on probation. No other details were immediately available about those cases.