Sex-trafficker pleads guilty to ‘selling’ runaway Macon girl at Warner Robins motel
A southwest Georgia man pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Macon to one count of sex trafficking of children in connection with a 2016 episode involving a 15-year-old girl who’d run away from a Bibb County group foster home.
Demetrius “Red” Hunter, 39, faces 10 years to life in federal prison at sentencing in August. A co-defendant in the case, Tamara “Coco” Taylor, 30, also of Dougherty County, faces a maximum of five years behind bars on a related charge.
Upon encountering the girl in west Macon, Taylor introduced her to Hunter who, according to officials, invited her to join them “traveling the world.”
They made it as far as Warner Robins.
The case against Taylor and Hunter stems from an Oct. 5, 2016, chance meeting that Taylor had with the 15-year-old girl at the Bridgeview Inn & Suites motel on Harrison Road.
The motel sits along Eisenhower Parkway east of Interstate 475 in an area rife with low-rate lodgings, many of which law enforcement officials have recently characterized as havens for drug sales and prostitution.
A statement Friday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia said the 15-year-old girl had gone to the motel looking for her sister. The girl didn’t find her sister and was abandoned by the person who’d taken her there. Instead, she met Taylor.
“The victim informed Taylor of her age and that she had run away from a group home,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office statement said.
When he met the girl, Hunter told her she could stay with them but that she “would have to make money,” the statement added. “The victim did not understand at that time how she would be expected to make money.”
The next night, they moved to a motel in Warner Robins, where the teenager’s “profile” was listed on a website called Backpage, known for advertising what officials described as “commercial sex acts.”
The ad for the teen was said to include pictures of her “in underwear.” The ad also listed a cellphone number for a phone that Taylor and Hunter had given the girl.
At some point, officials said in the statement, Hunter told the girl she would have to do “tricks” to get money. He also was said to have forced the the girl “to perform sex acts on him,” officials said.
“As a result of the advertisements posted on Backpage, the victim had to engage in two to five commercial sex acts,” the statement added. “During her time with Hunter and Taylor, the victim relied on them for her shelter and food. She stated in her interview with law enforcement that when having to engage in one commercial sex act, she told herself, ‘You gotta do this, you gotta get the money, that’s how you eat.’”
Taylor and Hunter stayed with the girl for about 10 days until “they were encountered by law enforcement,” the statement noted, and the girl was taken back to the group home.