A 36-year-old man who trafficked a 13-year-old girl out of a hotel room in Irving was sentenced Wednesday to more than 11 years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
Curtis Vance Mathis was indicted in December 2019 and pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of children in June 2021. He was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade to 135 months in prison.
“Those who exploit minors for the commercial sex industry have no regard for human decency. These predators are responsible for initiating a pattern of mental and physical abuse that is often hard for their victims to overcome ,” said Jesse Woods, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Homeland Security Investigations Dallas. “Anyone who engages in this type of criminal behavior should know that HSI and its law enforcement partners of the North Texas Trafficking Task Force will work endlessly to remove these predators from our communities.”
According to plea papers, Mr. Mathis admitted that he advertised a 13-year-old girl’s sexual services on numerous commercial sex websites, including CityXGuide, a site the feds seized in summer 2020. (CityXGuide’s owner, Wilhan Martono, subsequently pleaded guilty to reckless disregard of sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in interstate transportation in aid of racketeering and is awaiting sentencing. The site remains out of commission.)
In Oct. 2019, Mr. Mathis met the child and began posting her for commercial sex on websites and thereafter took those proceeds. After a disagreement, the child left, but returned to him only a few weeks later.
On Nov. 4, 2019, Mr. Mathis brought the child to a hotel room in Irving, where she met with multiple customers, including, allegedly, Kention Johnson and Sergio Carvajal. (Mr. Johnson and Mr. Carvajal have both been charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking of children; their cases are pending and they remain innocent until proven guilty in court.)
Meanwhile, law enforcement agents working the missing child case noticed her photograph on a CityXGuide advertisement. An undercover agent texted the associated phone number to arrange a meeting at the hotel. Posing as a commercial sex customer, he identified the room she used to meet customers and immediately recovered the child from the room.
Agents later reviewed surveillance video from the hotel and observed Mr. Mathis rent a room, escort the child upstairs, leave her there, and then return after her customers departed to retrieve cash.
Homeland Security Investigations’ Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation with assistance from the Fort Worth Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Myria Boehm prosecuted the case with help from Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebekah Ricketts (fmr.) and Cara Foos Pierce (fmr.).
