Child-luring suspect accused of preying on prostitutes

Sheriff’s deputies believe a man arrested last week in connection with a kidnapping and several child-luring incidents may have also been preying on prostitutes.

Konstantin A. Sergienko has been charged with a second count of kidnapping after another alleged victim came forward.

The woman said she encountered Sergienko, 38, while working as a prostitute in late 2013. She said she got into his car and he immediately began driving, according to a Sheriff’s Department news release.

After seeing rope, a shovel and a tarp in the back seat of the car, she became afraid and asked him to stop, which he refused to do. Eventually, she was able to dive from the moving car while Sergienko tried to grab her by the arm, the release said.

Sergienko is suspected of luring two Spokane Valley teenage girls and a developmentally disabled young woman over the past two months, and of kidnapping a teenager with sexual motivation on Sept. 12, 2013.

He was first arrested last Friday, and rearrested on the first kidnapping charge late that afternoon, after Deputy Prosecutor Patrick Johnson told a judge there was insufficient evidence to keep Sergienko in jail on the child luring charges.

He has now been charged with a second count of kidnapping with sexual motivation, and re-charged in one of the child luring cases. He is being held in the Spokane County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bond on the child luring charge and $50,000 bond on the first kidnapping charge.

Detectives believe Sergienko may have had contact with other women working as escorts or prostitutes and are asking them to come forward. Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Mark Gregory said investigators are concerned with helping other victims, not prosecuting people who may have had contact with Sergienko if they were engaged in prostitution.

Anyone with additional information is asked to contact Det. Kirk Keyser at (509) 477-6611.