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Human trafficking has increased in Texas and elsewhere since the pandemic broke out.
Brian Sevald
When federal arrested him, Anthony Lennell Acy, 34, was holding his victims in room 211 of the Comfort Inn and Suites on Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway in Dallas.
He had beaten her, ecstatic her and forced her to have sex with clients in Texas and California, according to court documents. He would threaten her with knives and guns. He had promised to kill their families if they went to the police.
One of the victims, a 14-year-old girl, had fled her home in McKinney. After taking off, she met Acy on Facebook, according to a Justice Department press release on Friday.
Acy told her that he wanted to be her boyfriend and promised her the opportunity to model for his alleged clothing line. But when he took her to the hotel room, he took her phone and car keys and held her captive with another victim.
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Meanwhile, he posted advertisements on several websites boasting “various sexual activities” and showing one of the children in “poor clothes,” according to a Homeland Security agent. Acy forced the victims to pay him $ 1,000 a day, authorities say.
But when Acy left the hotel room on January 24th, agents stormed in and arrested him. The teenager, identified as “Jane Doe 1” on court records, was later transferred to the Child Advocacy Center in Dallas.
Federal authorities have beaten Acy on federal child sex trafficking charges and sex trafficking charges involving violence, fraud and coercion.
In total, Acy had sex trafficked the two victims for about a month. On Thursday, it took a jury just half an hour to pronounce a guilty verdict.
“Human trafficking is one of the most humiliating crimes we prosecute.” – Prerak Shah, acting US attorney
tweet that Acy’s conviction is due to come before US District Judge Jane Boyle on November 18. He faces a life sentence in federal prison of at least 15 years.
“Human trafficking is one of the most humiliating crimes we prosecute,” Acting US Attorney Prerak Shah said in the press release. “Like so many human traffickers, this defendant hunted down vulnerable victims and filled his pockets at the expense of their dignity.”
Ryan L. Spradlin, a special homeland security officer in Dallas, said his team will “vigorously pursue anyone involved in sex trafficking.”
“We will be aggressively investigating these types of cases to ensure that predators are identified, arrested, and justice is meted out,” he said.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began early last year, the number of sex trafficking cases in Texas has increased. According to the Texas Attorney General, there are an estimated 79,000 “Youth and Minor Sex Trafficking Victims in Texas” at any given point in time.
Last April, a study by Polaris, a nonprofit group committed to ending human and sex trafficking, found that sex and labor trafficking in Texas had increased by nearly 40 percent in the first few months of the pandemic.
A new law in Texas, which goes into effect September 1, will make Texas one of the first states in the country to increase the fee for buying sex from an offense to a crime in state prison.
“We know demand is the driving force behind human trafficking,” said Senfronia Thompson MP, who drafted the bill. “If we can stem or eradicate the end of demand, when can the lives of many people be saved.”
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