A north Texas man got life behind bars for pimping out two underage teen girls. He also physically abused and sexually assaulted them, say authorities.
On Monday, June 12, United States Attorney John Parker for the Northern District of Texas announced that U.S. District Court Judge David Godbey sentenced Martavious Detrel Banks Keys, a.k.a. “Cheese” and “Matt,” to life imprisonment for felony sex trafficking of the minors.
“The absolute horror that these two girls were subjected to is unimaginable and profoundly sad,” said Parker referring to the 15-year-old known as Jane Doe 1 and the 14-year-old identified as Jane Doe 2. Keys prostituted both girls to “engage in commercial sex acts” between March and April in 2015.
Earlier this year, a federal grand jury convicted Keys, 34, on two counts of child sex trafficking and one count of sex trafficking through force, fraud, or coercion. Keys, a Mesquite resident, has remained in custody since the time of his May 2016 arrest. One month later, he was indicted.
In a press release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas detailed some of the horrific ordeal endured by the two girls who Keys also sexually attacked and brutally beat, one at gunpoint. He threatened the teens with bodily harm if they did not continue to participate in his profit-bearing sex scheme.
Keys recruited male customers by placing sex ads on Backpage.com, the “advertising” website long criticized for allegedly facilitating the promotion of sex trafficking of women and children. In January, Backpage shut down its adult advertising section following pressure from two state attorney generals and a U.S. Senate investigative panel, Breitbart Texas reported. However, recently, law enforcement officials and other anti-sex trafficking groups voiced concerns that these advertisements were not necessarily gone but moved from the “adult” to the “dating” section.
As a result of the Backpage online ads, the teens engaged in numerous, sometimes even up to 16, sex acts a day at Keys’ direction. They serviced johns out of Keys’ residence or at Dallas-area hotels. Keys even negotiated client service fees over text messages, pretending to be the minors. Otherwise unemployed, Keys kept all of the money and purchased various items including a Chevrolet Tahoe with aftermarket rims, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Last year, The Dallas Morning News reported the girls worked as prostitutes “for $150 per customer,” according to a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) complaint filed in this case. It stated Keys used violence, methamphetamine, and cocaine to keep the girls, who recently completed drug rehab, high and under his thumb. It noted the 15-year-old said Keys choked her while they had sex and forced her to have anal sex with customers when she complained of vaginal bleeding “from the number of clients and frequency of the sexual intercourse.”
Both girls ultimately escaped from Keys and later spoke to police.
“The total depravity displayed by the shocking nature of this crime justifies this sentence,” stated Parker, referencing Keys’ federal prison punishment.
Agencies investigating this case included the North Texas Trafficking Task Force, Mesquite Police Department, Texas Department of Public Safety (Garland), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE), HSI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Child Protective Services (CPS).
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