Rapper drugged and sex trafficked teens in Texas, feds say. ‘Took away her childhood’
“Art sometimes imitates life,” federal prosecutors said about a Texas rapper’s life sentence after he was accused of sex trafficking three teens and one adult.
Jacorey Nathaniel Anderson, also known as Slando Kareem, lured the four victims, including three teenagers, from Houston on social media and over text, then convinced them to go to the Austin area, federal officials said.
The man, now 29, then deprived them of food, gave them drugs and forced them into prostitution as he pocketed their earnings, according to a Sept. 19 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas.
His music videos and songs — shown during his federal jury trial — showed him assaulting a victim as her mouth was sealed shut with duct tape and her hands and feet were restrained, prosecutors said.
Anderson was convicted of sex trafficking on April 19 and sentenced to life in prison on Sept. 19, according to court documents and federal officials.
Anderson’s attorney, Tom Berg, told McClatchy News that they appealed his conviction and sentence due to prosecutors’ commentary on the songs and music videos.
“The First Amendment is supposed to shield ideas, even offensive ones,” he said in a Sept. 20 email to McClatchy News. “ ... The music had no bearing on guilt or blameworthiness.”
When the four victims arrived in the Austin area, they were told to “walk the ‘track,’” officials said, and were made to pose for “sexually explicit advertisements for commercial sex online.”
After 24 hours, the adult victim escaped. The three teens, two of them as young as 15 years old, were taken to a hotel in Stafford where they were forced to engage in commercial sex acts, prosecutors said. Two of the teens eventually escaped.
The remaining teen victim continued to be trafficked by Anderson for weeks as he starved her and took all the money made from prostitution, according to the news release.
“Unfortunately, for several young girls, he breathed life into his poorly crafted lyrics – providing drugs, starving and trafficking them for his own financial gain,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said in the news release.
Eventually, Anderson was arrested in Dallas when he attempted to traffic an undercover cop posing as a minor, according to officials.
One teen victim testifying at Anderson’s sentencing hearing said he “took away her childhood,” according to the news release. She said his actions have had a “negative impact” on her relationships.
Two co-conspirators Lelonnie Stephon Jackson, 33, and Thomas Jarrett Barraza, 37, have been convicted, officials said. Jackson was sentenced to 60 months in prison. Barraza’s sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 12.
Stafford, in the Houston area, is about a 160-mile drive southeast from Austin.
