Sex trafficker gets more than 11 years for selling 13-year-old Fort Worth girl in Irving
A 36-year-old man who trafficked a 13-year-old Fort Worth girl out of an Irving hotel room was sentenced on Wednesday to more than 11 years in federal prison for the crime, according to federal authorities.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham announced Thursday that Curtis Vance Mathis was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade to 135 months in prison.
Mathis had been indicted in December 2019 and pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of children in June 2021.
“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 of Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas, in a Thursday news release. “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.”
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, according to federal court records.
The 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. CityXGuide remains out of commission.
The girl from Fort Worth was reported missing in September 2019 by her family.
In October 2019, Mathis met the girl 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.
Mathis brought the child to the Irving hotel room on Nov. 4, 2019, where she met with multiple customers, including, allegedly, Kention Johnson and Sergio Carvajal, according to federal authorities. Johnson and Carvajal have both been charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking of children. Their cases are pending.
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 saw Mathis rent a room, escort the child upstairs, leave her there, and then return to retrieve cash after her customers departed.
Homeland Security Investigations’ Dallas Field Office conducted the investigation with assistance from the Fort Worth Police Department.
