DALLAS — Two Dallas men were arrested Sept. 9 after a grand jury indicted them on charges of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking of children, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Texas.
A third man, accused of advertising sex with a minor online, is already in federal custody and faces the same charges.
“Now, generally, federal human trafficking investigations focus on the sellers, the pimps who profit off the trafficking victims. Today we are announcing charges on the buyers -- the so called Johns -- who purchased sex with the trafficking victims,” North Texas U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox said. “In order to effectively to disrupt and deter this type of criminal conduct we must attack all aspects of it.”
Last November, Homeland Security investigators rescued a 13-year-old victim who from an Irving hotel less than 24 hours after the man accused of advertising her for sex checked in with the victim. That teen had been reported missing out of Fort Worth.
Investigators rescued the girl after posing as a buyer responding to the online advertisement. The victim was "clearly a child under the age of 18 in both her physical appearance and mannerisms," according to a search warrant application written by investigators.
Kention Obryan Johnson, 35, and Sergio Trinidad Carvajal, 30, visited the hotel room where the child was kept, according to the U.S. Attorney.
A third man, 34-year-old Curtis Vance Mathis, is accused of advertising the girl on an illegal sexual services website, CityXGuide.com, which has since been shut down, officials said.
“This victim admitted that she had been trafficked multiple times. In fact that night, she had been sexually assaulted by multiple men in quick succession,” Nealy Cox added.
Mathis has been in federal custody since Dec. 10, 2019, according to the grand jury indictment.
Johnson and Carvajal responded to that advertisement, investigators said.
“In trafficking we must go after the sellers, who are the pimps. We must go after the facilitators, who are those who advertise for the victims. And we must go after the buyers, who purchase the sex with the victims,” Nealy Cox said.
She said their goal is to make the community safer by getting suspects off the streets and send a strong message to others engaged in this type of conduct.
Investigators used hotel surveillance footage, phone records and DNA evidence to identify the suspects, documents show.
Phone records revealed messages from Johnson's phone to the number listed in the advertisement arranging a "quick visit" for $80, an arrest warrant affidavit shows.
Separate phone records for Carvajal's phone number show a similar exchange and matched the time of his visit to the hotel, based on surveillance footage, according to the affidavit.
DNA evidence from sperm in used condoms found in the hotel room matched the DNA profiles of Johnson and Carvajal, according to a report from the Fort Worth Medical Examiner.
The U.S. Attorney obtained a search warrant in December to collect DNA tests from Johnson and Carvajal, records show.
After she was rescued, the victim described for investigators two of the men who visited the hotel room, including two who didn't use condoms, the affidavit says. Investigators wrote that they also found two used condoms in the room, which were ultimately tied to the two men arrested.
The men face a life sentence if convicted.