Sacramento Man Who Trafficked Underaged Girls Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison

SACRAMENTO, CA—United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that Deandre Lornell Brown, 27, of Sacramento, was sentenced today to 30 years in prison, followed by a 10-year term of supervised release, as a result of his conviction at trial for charges of sex trafficking of children. Brown was also ordered to pay $5,200 in restitution.

According to testimony presented at trial, Brown met and recruited two underaged girls to work for him as prostitutes in and around the Sacramento area. Brown recruited the first minor (Victim #1) in 2005, and she continued to work for him until his arrest in September 2009. Brown used force, threats of force, and coercion to force Victim #1 to prostitute for him. These acts included rape, pistol-whipping, and putting a pistol into her mouth and fingering the trigger. Brown also regularly assaulted her, slapping, punching, and kicking her. In one incident described during the trial, Brown inflicted wounds on Victim #1 that were so severe, including pouring bleach into open wounds on her body, that emergency medical treatment was required.

Brown recruited the second minor (Victim #2) on September 2, 2009. She worked for Brown until September 13, 2009, when she ran away following a beating. During the time that she was with him, Victim #2 was anally raped, forced to engage in sexual acts with other prostitutes that worked for Brown, and assaulted.

Brown forced Victims #1 and #2, along with a third prostitute, his co-defendant in the case, to work for him in the Stockton Boulevard area of South Sacramento. Brown posted online advertisements on prostitution web sites advertising the girls’ services, monitored and supervised their activities, and collected the money that they earned from prostitution. Brown also violently enforced his pimping rules in order to maintain control of the girls.

In sentencing Brown, United States District Judge Frank C. Damrell, Jr. said that Brown’s conduct “violated the laws of humanity.” According to Judge Damrell, the pain and suffering Brown inflicted on his victims “was inhuman” and “brutal. You wouldn’t do that to a dog, an animal.” Judge Damrell went on to say that the victims who testified at trial and recounted the horrors committed against them by Brown “were human beings. They were little girls… you degraded them to the point of being animals.”

Brown offered a statement at sentencing expressing remorse for his actions and asking for leniency from the court. Judge Damrell imposed his sentence after noting that Brown’s failure to “understand and appreciate that what he has done [to his victims] is notable.” Judge Damrell told Brown that the lengthy prison sentence was necessary for Brown to “understand the pain that [he] inflicted on these girls.” “The bottom line is that you are going to spend most of your life [in prison] thinking about what you have done,” said Judge Damrell.

This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the Sacramento Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working together as part of the FBI’s Innocence Lost Task Force. Assistant United States Attorneys Kyle Reardon and Michael Beckwith prosecuted the case.