Sex Trafficking

Sacramento Man Pleads Guilty to Sex Trafficking of a Minor


April 13, 2010 - SACRAMENTO—United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced today that Marvin Chavelle Epps, 23, of Sacramento, pleaded guilty today before Senior United States District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. to one count of sex trafficking of a minor.

This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the FBI’s Innocence Lost Task Force, which is composed of Sacramento City Police detectives and FBI special agents targeting child prostitution in the greater Sacramento area.

According to Assistant United States Attorney Laurel D. White, who is prosecuting the case, for approximately three weeks in October 2008, Epps acted as the pimp for a 16-year-old Solano County minor, using the Internet to solicit sex dates in a North Sacramento Motel.

Court documents show that the minor victim said that she originally met Epps in September 2008 on the social networking site MySpace. During their MySpace communications, Epps promoted himself to her as a pimp and encouraged her to come to Sacramento where she could work for him. He told her that he would pay for a bus or train ticket for her to come to Sacramento. He claimed he had been in the prostitution “game for five almost six years now.”

Once the minor came to Sacramento, Epps began to post prostitution related advertisements for her on a website that offers escort, massage, strip club, and other sex-related services. The minor reported that Epps took sexually provocative pictures of her, which he used for the Internet ads. She told law enforcement that she gave him all the money she earned from her prostitution activity.

Epps is scheduled to be sentenced on July 26, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. For a violation of sex trafficking of a minor, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years up to the maximum of life in prison, a potential fine of up to $250,000, a life term of supervised release, and an order of restitution to his victim. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the federal sentencing guidelines, which take into account a number of variables. Epps has agreed to forfeit the camera and computer he used in furtherance of his sex trafficking activity.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood (PSC), a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC mobilizes federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information, visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov or call the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California and ask to speak with the PSC coordinator.