Man sentenced in sex trafficking case involving Las Vegas teen
A Georgia man who forced a 17-year-old Las Vegas girl to work as a prostitute in Southern California has been sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison.
Kenyati Jakeen Rahh-Potts, 27, of Hahira, Georgia, was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison Monday by U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, according to a release issued Friday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California.
Rahh-Plotts pleaded guilty in February 2015 to one count of sex trafficking, the release said.
A second defendant in the case, Tabitha Samaria Walls, 24, of Elk Grove, California, was sentenced last year to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to engage in sex trafficking.
According to court documents, Rahh-Potts and Walls trafficked a 17-year-old girl from Las Vegas to California and forced her to engage in acts of prositution in Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pomona and Ontario over an 11-day period in 2013.
Rahh-Potts and Walls, who were living in Apple Valley, California when they were arrested in August 2013, created online advertisements on backpage.com to prostitute the victim and then took all of the money that the girl earned.
“No child should be subject to this type of abuse,” said U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker. “These defendants showed no concern for the humanity of this young person, whose body was sold via online ads strictly for their own profit.”
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which receive substantial assistance from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
“The FBI is committed to ending the victimization caused by those who callously advertise and sell minors as sex slaves,” said Deirdre Fike, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
Contact Jessica Terrones at jterrones@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Find @JessATerrones on Twitter.