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Press Release
Press Release
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Two Hyattsville, Maryland men were each sentenced today to 26 years in prison for sex trafficking three minors throughout the East Coast from September through November 2016.
According to evidence presented at trial and court documents, Dennis Davis Jr. aka Dee, 26, and Ivan Williams aka Lucci, 28, sex trafficked three underage girls while working with their convicted co-conspirators, Chelsea Canterbury aka Katt, 26, and Rebecca Hamilton aka Becca, 22, also of Hyattsville. Davis, Williams, and their co-conspirators recruited the three underage girls, whom they trafficked in numerous locations, including Northern Virginia, Richmond, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia. They worked together to post online advertisements of the victims offering them for commercial sex with men throughout the region, reserved hotel rooms at which they and the victims would stay when traveling to engage in commercial sex acts, drove the victims to the hotels and other locations where the commercial sex acts occurred, and collected the money given to the victims by the commercial sex customers. The evidence further showed that when two of the minors tried to leave the group, Davis and Williams resorted to violence, including physical force and brandishing firearms. Davis and Williams used the money earned by the victims to create rap music where they bragged about exploiting females, and to fund their day-to-day living expenses.
Tracy Doherty-McCormick, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, John P. Cronan, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Nancy McNamara, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Colonel Edwin C. Roessler Jr., Fairfax County Chief of Police, and Humberto I. Cardounel Jr., Chief of Henrico County Police Division, made the announcement after sentencing by Senior U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis, III. Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen C. Cain of the Eastern District of Virginia and Trial Attorney Jessica L. Urban of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) prosecuted the case.
The FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force investigated the case with substantial assistance from the Fairfax County Police Department and the Henrico County Police Department.
This investigation was a part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
A copy of this press release is located on the website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Related court documents and information is located on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia or on PACER by searching for Case No. 1:17-cr-196.
Joshua Stueve
Director of Communications
joshua.stueve@usdoj.gov