More than 150 people were arrested and a juvenile sex trafficking victim was rescued after Los Angeles County authorities shut down a massive underground party, NBC News reports.
Deputies broke up the party Saturday night at a vacant home in Palmdale, northeast of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a news conference on Tuesday that organizers broke into the home and used a rental truck to move their party equipment.
"This is how brazen this operation was," Villanueva said, calling the party a "superspreader" event that could become a "deadly source of contagion" during the coronavirus pandemic.
"As you can see, this was a flagrant violation of the governor's health order. But also please understand that even without the health order, these actions were criminal in nature," he said.
Authorities arrested 158 people at the party, including 35 juveniles. A 17-year-old girl who Villanueva described as a "commercially sexually exploited child" was rescued from the home. Six guns were also recovered.
