Five people involved in sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl have been sentenced to a combined 63 years and six months in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.
They are Jaelind Fountaine, 27, who was sentenced today to 327 months in prison for sex trafficking and attempted sex trafficking of a minor and required to register as a sex offender; Sarah Gonzales, 26, who was previously sentenced to 87 months for interstate transportation to engage in prostitution and required to register as a sex offender; and Cameron Phifer, 25, who was sentenced to 240 months for distribution and receipt of child pornography and required to register as a sex offender.
Others are Deryan Thomas, 33, who was sentenced to 87 months for interstate transportation to engage in prostitution and required to register as a sex offender, and Bianka Vega, 23, who was sentenced to 21 months for misprision (concealment) of a felony
“As a prosecutor and as a mother, my heart breaks for this teenager, who was passed from trafficker to trafficker like a piece of livestock, beaten and even branded by violent men looking to profit from her misery. No person, adult or child, should have to suffer like that,” said U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office and our law enforcement partners will stop at nothing to recover these victims, and we tenaciously prosecute anyone involved in trafficking them.”
According to plea papers, the 17-year-old victim went missing from her apartment complex in Lubbock on November 28, 2022.
The investigation revealed that her neighbour and neighbour’s boyfriend, Bianka Vega and Deryan Thomas, took the child to Odessa to meet with known sex trafficker Cameron Phifer. The four of them then drove to Carlsbad, New Mexico, where they took sexually explicit photographs of the child and posted ads for her sexual services online.
At one point, Vega reminded Phifer that the victim was a minor and informed him that both her mother and law enforcement were looking for her. Phifer told Vega it was “too late to stop” and continued trafficking the child until abandoning her at a hotel in Carlsbad in early January.
On January 15, Sarah Gonzales approached the victim in the hotel lobby and later introduced her to Jaelind Fountaine, a known trafficker who went by the alias ‘Valentino’.
In an interview with law enforcement, the child said Fountaine arranged for meetings with clients, taught her how to engage in the sex trade, and took all the money she made – approximately $10,000. She said she believed she would receive some of that money, but she never did in the end.
The child told investigators that Fountaine physically assaulted her on multiple occasions, threatened to hurt her if she left him, and forced her to “brand” herself with a “V” tattoo to indicate his ownership of her. Law enforcement found photos of the tattoo on Fountaine’s phone.
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