Houston Man Sentenced to 360 Months Imprisonment for Trafficking 13-Year-Old Female into the New Orleans Area to Perform Commercial Sex Acts

According to court documents, LEWIS met his co-conspirator, Chelsea Gee, a female born in 2003, in about late 2019 or early 2020, when Gee was a minor.  LEWIS recruited Gee to engage in commercial sex acts under his direction, and she complied.  LEWIS also instituted a series of rules for Gee to follow, including how to behave, what to wear, with whom she was allowed to interact (i.e., look at and speak to), as well as the amount of money she was expected to earn from engaging in daily commercial sex acts.  LEWIS routinely tracked Gee’s location using a location sharing cellular phone application and regularly engaged in sexual acts with Gee.

Together, LEWIS and Gee met the thirteen-year-old victim, in the Houston, Texas area not later than June 21, 2021.  At LEWIS’s direction, Gee recruited the victim to perform commercial sex acts.  After the victim agreed, LEWIS arranged for he, Gee, and the victim to travel to New Orleans on a Greyhound bus so that Gee and the victim would then engage in commercial sex acts.  Between June 22, 2021, and June 24, 2021, Gee and the victim performed multiple commercial sex acts in the New Orleans area.  LEWIS required Minor Victim to turn over all, or most, of the money she earned from commercial sex acts to LEWIS.  LEWIS and Gee  instructed the victim on the manner in which to successfully perform commercial sex activities. These instructions included how to behave, what to wear, how to identify and avoid law enforcement, and how to solicit and engage in commercial sex activities, all under LEWIS’s direction.

On LEWIS’s direction, Gee and the victim solicited commercial sex “dates” in several ways.  First, they walked the streets soliciting customers.  Additionally, LEWIS advertised using an online sexual service, classified ad service used to market sexual services  for money.  As a result, LEWIS received telephone calls, text messages, and messages via social media applications inquiring about, and scheduling, prostitution calls with Gee and the victim.  LEWIS used sexually explicit pictures of the victim in the advertisements.  Further, LEWIS and Gee drugged the victim with illicit and mood-altering drugs, including marijuana, to control her behavior, and/or to encourage her to engage in commercial sex acts.  Law enforcement authorities recovered the victim at a hotel in Terrytown, Louisiana, on June 24, 2021.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc.  For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”