Chicago Sex Trafficker Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison

CHICAGO — A Chicago man has been sentenced to ten years in federal prison for exploiting several young men and a woman in a national sex trafficking operation.

TIMOTHY DORSEY facilitated the prostitution of his victims in the Chicago area and throughout the country, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada and Texas.  Dorsey sought customers for his victims through online advertisements that offered erotic massage services but contained code words to convey that sex acts would be included.  He booked and funded his workers’ travel expenses to meet with individuals who responded to the ads, and he collected at least half of the illicit proceeds.  Dorsey threatened to assault or kill anyone who left his sex trafficking operation.

Dorsey, 52, pleaded guilty last year to two counts of transporting an individual in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution.  U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp., Jr., on Tuesday imposed the ten-year prison sentence.  In determining the sentence, Judge Tharp found that the government demonstrated that Dorsey directed one his workers to murder a man who had left Dorsey’s organization to work on his own.  The man was shot multiple times outside of a motel in Schiller Park on Feb. 27, 2015.  The individual who fired the shots was convicted of murder in the Circuit Court of Cook County and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Dorsey's sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the FBI.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia and the Schiller Park Police Department provided valuable assistance.

“Timothy Dorsey recruited young men and women who were struggling with emotional and substance abuse issues into his national prostitution operation,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jared C. Jodrey and Maureen E. Merin argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.  “He preyed on young people with troubled family situations, mental health and drug abuse issues, and he emotionally and physically abused them while they were involved in his organization.”

If you believe you are a victim of sexual exploitation, you are encouraged to call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678, or log on to http://www.missingkids.com.  The service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.