The scandal tied to disgraced attorney Mike Mearan has revealed far more than one man’s crimes. Investigative files obtained by SCDN show a web of associates who allegedly benefited from Mearan’s trafficking of Southern Ohio women.
For decades, rumors swirled around Portsmouth attorney and city councilman Mike Mearan and his alleged role in human trafficking. Now, investigative files reveal a broader network of men accused of paying for sex with women Mearan supplied.
The second name tied to Mearan’s trafficking network is Daren Biggs, a man from Kentucky who, according to victims, paid for sex through arrangements facilitated by Mearan himself.
Victim J reported that when Mearan was her court-appointed attorney, he introduced her to Biggs and arranged multiple encounters. She said money exchanged hands between Mearan and Biggs in return for her sexual acts, including intercourse. Victim B confirmed this same pattern, telling detectives she was also trafficked to Biggs.
The most chilling detail: Mearan wasn’t just arranging prostitution—he was allegedly using his position as a lawyer to sell out the very women he was supposed to defend.
“This is a betrayal at the deepest level,” Craycraft said. “When someone you depend on for legal protection becomes your trafficker, the system itself has failed you.”
These allegations also highlight the cross-state nature of the network, with women from Ohio allegedly trafficked to buyers in Kentucky and beyond.
For victims caught in cycles of poverty, addiction, and incarceration, the power imbalance was overwhelming. Biggs, like other named suspects, represents how traffickers preyed on women already trapped in the justice system.
