Local Woman Sentenced in Sex Trafficking Conspiracy
| U.S. Attorney’s Office February 03, 2014 |
ST. LOUIS, MO—Carla Mathews was sentenced to 10 years in prison involving a conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of two area women by force and intimidation.
According to court documents, between 2010 and the October 2012, Carla Mathews and her co-defendant recruited and maintained women, physically assaulted them, and forced them to engage in prostitution in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Mathews took the women to various hotels for commercial sex dates and kept the money generated by the victims for herself. She confiscated their food-stamp identification (EBT) cards to control them and deprive them of food and drink as a method of control. Mathews also provided the victims with the drug MDMA and clothing in preparation for the commercial sex dates she arranged for them.
Mathews, 27, Breckenridge Hills, Missouri, pled guilty last October to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion and appeared today for sentencing before United States District Judge Henry Autrey.
Co-defendant Carl Mathews, 33, also of Breckenridge Hills, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in July 2013.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Investigations, and the Breckenridge Hills Police Department.