Sex Trafficking: an NBA G Leaguer’s arrest provides glimpse into an evil subculture

With January designated as National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, Capitol Weekly is examining the scourge of sex trafficking. In part two of this three-part series, we take a closer look at the high-profile arrest of Stockton Kings player Chance Comanche in the murder of a sex worker, and offer a glimpse into not only how that world operates, but also just how intertwined it is with popular culture.

In the slow days leading up to the end of the year, the shocking arrest of a Sacramento Kings G League player for murder in Las Vegas grabbed headlines nationwide for its sensational mix of murder and professional sports in America’s adult playground.

But the Chance Comanche case provides a window into something more: America’s pimp-prostitute subculture, which is the arena for much of the sex trafficking that occurs in our nation today. Moreover, it illustrates why it can be so challenging for law enforcement and lawmakers to tell the difference between victims and victimizers.

That certainly appears to be true for the murder victim in the Comanche case. According to police reports, 23-year-old Marayna Rodgers of Washington state drove into Las Vegas with two men, one who described himself as her childhood friend and another described as her boyfriend. Both men told police they knew Rodgers went to Las Vegas “with the intent of engaging in prostitution.”

After she disappeared on December 6^th, both men told police they were suspicious that something had happened to her – but neither reported her missing, despite the fact that they had come to Las Vegas with her. Instead, two other friends of Rodgers reported her missing on December 7^th and the police eventually tracked down the friend and boyfriend for questioning.

“The Game is to be sold, not told,” meaning make money and keep your mouth shut. Loose lips only lead to trouble.

Upon questioning, the two men told police that they had heard that Rodgers had met up with 19-year-old Sakari Harnden, Comanche’s co-defendant, for a double prostitution date – but then Rodgers had left Harnden in an Uber to go to meet with another john (or “trick,” a man who purchases sex). The man described as Rodgers’ boyfriend told police he was skeptical of that story because Rodgers always used his Uber account to travel.

In fact, he told police he didn’t think Rodgers even had an Uber account of her own.

This lines up with the sort of controlling behavior typical of a trafficker, not allowing a victim to handle her own transportation.

Secrecy is also mandatory in the pimp-prostitute subculture, i.e. “The Game is to be sold, not told,” meaning make money and keep your mouth shut. Loose lips only lead to trouble.

That could explain a possible motive behind Rodgers’ murder. Both Rodgers’ boyfriend and childhood friend told police that Rodgers and Harnden got into altercation on December 4. According to the men, Harnden was upset with Rodgers because Rodgers had apparently told some people that Harnden had implicated her boyfriend in a double murder in California.

A police report Capitol Weekly obtained redacts the last name of Harnden’s boyfriend but says his first name is “Iosua” and that he is “currently in custody for the Murder in San Joaquin County Jail.” A search of current San Joaquin County inmates reveals that Iosua Sataua, age 19, is in custody for two counts of murder, among other charges. He was picked by the California Highway Patrol on Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County in April. Police believe he and another teenager are to blame for a double homicide in Stockton on March 4.

The victims in that shooting were Andrea Lee Jones, age 24, and Jacob Haywood Thomas, 29. Thomas rapped under the stage name J Blacc. He was a known artist in Stockton’s Hip Hop community. In a separate police report, Rodgers’ childhood friend refers to Harnden’s boyfriend by the name “Lil Play.” EBK Lil Play is the name Sataua raps under.

As has been reported in the Sacramento Bee and elsewhere, Comanche, 27, was a star basketball player at Beverly Hills High School, the alma mater of such Hollywood heavyweights as Nicolas Cage, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Dreyfus, Carrie Fisher and Angelina Jolie. He played college basketball at the University of Arizona, where he helped the Wildcats reach the Sweet 16 in the 2017 NCAA Tournament.

A 6’10” power forward/center, Comanche turned pro in 2017 after his sophomore season, but went undrafted. He bounced around the National Basketball Association’s G League, the NBA’s minor league, as well as a couple of other little-known basketball leagues. He played one game in the NBA for the Portland Trail Blazers, in April 2023. Then he signed with the Stockton Kings, the Sacramento Kings’ G League team, in October.

It was Comanche’s role on the Stockton Kings that brought him to Las Vegas in early December, when Harnden and Rodgers were both there. On December 4^th, the same day Harnden and Rodgers apparently argued over what Rodgers had allegedly said, the Stockton Kings arrived at the M Resort in Las Vegas, where they stayed before their December 5^th game against the G League Ignite.

According to police reports, Comanche met with Harnden when he got into town and stayed in touch with her via text message in between team activities. Police obtained an extensive transcript of a chat between the two, in which Comanche appears to tell Harnden that he’s in communication with some people who they can hire to murder Rodgers.

“Everythings [sic] getting in motion. Patience is a virtue lol,” Comanche texts Harnden at one point when he tells her his contact hasn’t gotten back to him yet. When those persons eventually declined to take the hit on Rodgers, Comanche texts, “I Can [sic] snap her neck or just strangle the [expletive].”

Later, in what police describe as Comanche coaching Harnden on what to say if she’s contacted by police, he texts her, “You just gotta find the way to word that ‘she be postings these adds [sic] to meet up with random dudes for money.’ Has to calmly get thrown into the convo. Police gone know wjat’s [sic] really up. It’s Vegas, she f***ed around and got kidnapped. She was with you till [sic] such and such time then the guy she was supposed to go meet with called her an Uber and she left. ‘That was the last time I saw her last night.’”

On December 14^th, after Las Vegas police reviewed the chat transcript, Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies approached Comanche at the Stockton Kings practice facility in Natomas (located where Sleep Train Arena used to be).

Comanche was arrested and taken to Sacramento County Jail where, according to police records, he admitted that he and Harnden murdered Rodgers.

According to a police report, Comanche told officers that when he met up with Harnden in Las Vegas, she complained to him about some “issues” she was having with Rodgers. According to the report, he said they began “putting together a plan to lure” her “away from her friends so they could kill her.”

The report said when they couldn’t find anyone to help with the murder, “they decided to carry out the murder themselves.”

Comanche said Harnden told Rodgers that he was a sex buyer who wanted to have sex with both of them. The three of them parked Harnden’s gray Mercedes Benz in a cul-de-sac. There, Harnden explained that Comanche was “into kinky sex” and wanted to tie both women up.

The women started to get undressed in the car and, Comanche told police, Rodgers allowed Harnden to zip tie her hands together.

But even as it stands now, this story illustrates how those engaged in prostitution can be victims or criminals – or both at the same time.

Then, Comanche said he strangled Rodgers with an HDMI cord while Harnden choked her with both of her hands. After she was dead, Comanche said they dumped Rodgers’ body in a ditch on the side of the road and buried her.

According to a police report, during his interview at the Sacramento County Jail, Comanche provided deputies with a map to Rodgers’ body. Following his directions, Las Vegas police found her remains.

Neither Comanche nor Harnden have been convicted of their charges, and more facts are likely to come to light in this case. (Indeed, a post on social media suggests others may have been involved.)

But even as it stands now, this story illustrates how those engaged in prostitution can be victims or criminals – or both at the same time.

Studies have found that a large percentage of women engaged in prostitution are under third-party or trafficker control, which would make them victims. But then some escorts engage in criminal activity while “working,” like robbing a sex buyer of his watch. Making matters more confusing, prostitutes may commit these crimes at the demand of their pimps, or they may do it on their own.

Something like this in fact may have happened with Harnden and Rodgers. In his interview with police, Comanche said that Harnden had told him that some of her friends had said Rodgers was threatening to “smoke” Harnden if Harnden did not give her what’s referred to as “the Rolex watch.”

In addition to being charged with Rodgers’ murder, Harnden has also been charged with theft in connection with a Rolex that was found on her person was she arrested in Las Vegas.

A check of the Rolex’s serial number by police revealed that the stainless steel, diamond bezel, oyster dial watch had been reported stolen out of Seattle on February 28, 2023 by a man with the first name of “Gregory,” who told the Seattle Police Department that the $15,000 watch was stolen from him in a vehicle burglary.

Nothing in the public record thus far directly links Comanche to pimping. But Harnden is quoted in police reports as alternatively saying that Comanche and she once dated, and that Comanche was a regular prostitution client of hers.

More details are expected to come out in court. Until then, we are left only with more questions as to how a young man from Beverly Hills with a seemingly bright future in professional sports could be seduced by the pimp lifestyle. Or how a young woman described as having “a boyfriend, family, friends, two dogs, and works as a surgical tech back home in Washington” could end up losing her life to that same world.

Brian Joseph has been researching domestic sex trafficking since early 2017. This fall, his non-fiction book Vegas Concierge: Sex Trafficking, Hip Hop, and Corruption in America will be published by Rowman & Littlefield.