Federal Prosecutor's Will Not Pursue Murder For Hire Charges Connected To Sex Slave Case:

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Bradley Joseph Cook (mug shot LCSO)

Federal prosecutors have decided that one of their top prosecutors in a sex slave case with ties to the Ozarks will stay on the case.

On Wednesday, a federal judge gave prosecutors a mid-December deadline to decide whether or not Cynthia Cordes would continue to be part of the trial team prosecuting the "worst sex crime" federal prosecutors in this area have seen.

In March, federal prosecutors alleged that Bradley Joseph Cook, 33, tried to hire a hit man to kill Cordes, and the alleged victim who was kept as a sex slave and tortured and abused for years in a trailer in Lebanon. The charges connected to the alleged murder plot against Cordes were made public in court documents, but charges have not been filed in the alleged scheme as it relates to Cordes.

The claim was included in a motion to keep Cook incarcerated and move him to a different jail, which Judge Robert Larson approved.      

Cook, Edward "Master Ed" Bagley, Michael Stokes, James Noel and Dennis Henry were all charged with sex trafficking last fall after the victim was taken to a hospital in Lebanon near death following a torture session in February of 2009.

 If convicted, each of the men face from five to fifteen years in prison.