Two Defendants Sentenced to 20 and 4 Years for Child Sex Trafficking

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – MAURICE MORLEE JOHNSON, 37, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was sentenced today to 240 months in federal prison for child sex trafficking of 14- and 15-year-old girls, announced Mark A. Yancey, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. In a related case, TONYA GAY GUM, 44, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was sentenced today to 48 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit child sex trafficking.

According to court records, in October 2014, Maurice Johnson, assisted by Hiram Mitchell, engaged in sex trafficking of two juvenile females (aged 14 and 15) and an adult female. As soon as the 14-year-old was recruited, Johnson instructed her to start calling phone numbers from the escort section of the Yellow Pages to find Tonya Gum, whom he knew as "Carmen." At the time, Gum operated at least twenty phone numbers listed in the escort section of the Oklahoma City Yellow Pages. The 14-year-old victim made contact with Gum and sent her photographs of herself and the adult female. After that, Gum began arranging commercial sex transactions between her established customer base (or new customers who called her phone lines) and the females under Johnson’s control. Johnson drove the girls to hotels, residences, and commercial spaces, where the customers paid in cash for sex. After each commercial sex transaction, Gum met the girls at different locations in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area to receive the proceeds, which Gum and Johnson split. They did not give any money to the victims they trafficked.

A federal grand jury indicted Johnson on December 3, 2014. He pled guilty to child sex trafficking on January 30, 2015, before U.S. District Judge Robin J. Cauthron. He will serve five years on supervised release after his 240-month prison term.

Gum was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 16, 2015, along with co-defendant customers. On November 19, 2015, she pled guilty to conspiracy to commit child sex trafficking, also before Judge Cauthron. She will serve three years on supervised release after her 48-month sentence.

Hiram Mitchell is currently serving a prison term of ten years after his guilty plea to child sex trafficking on January 29, 2015.

In June 2017, one of the group’s customers, Curtis Anthony, was found guilty of conspiracy to engage in child sex trafficking and the substantive offense of child sex trafficking after a jury trial. Trung N. Duong, another customer co-defendant of Gum and Anthony, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit child sex trafficking on May 9, 2017. Duong and Anthony await sentencing.

These cases are the result of an investigation conducted by United States Department of Homeland Security and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The case against Johnson was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys McKenzie Anderson and Brandon Hale. The case against Gum was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys McKenzie Anderson and David Petermann.