A Massachusetts woman pleaded guilty today for her role in conspiring with others and committing sex trafficking of two minors and one adult.
According to court documents and evidence presented in court, Christy Parker, also known as “Lula,” 28, of Fall River, Massachusetts, used physical beatings, threats, intimidation, sleep deprivation, starvation and other means to coerce at least one adult victim and two minor victims to engage in repeated commercial sex acts in and around Fall River, Massachusetts between January and August 2023. Starting in January 2023, Parker coerced the adult victim to engage in repeated commercial sex acts by physically beating, threatening and verbally abusing the victim; imposing manufactured debts on the victim; plying the victim with alcohol and subsequently withholding it; and threatening to have the authorities take the victim’s 3-year-old child away from her.
Parker later worked with a minor to recruit two minor victims for commercial sex with false promises of easy money. Parker and her co-defendants harbored the minor victims in a house and a Fall River hotel and provided them for commercial sex over the course of two months in July and August 2023. Parker physically beat and threatened the minor victims, prohibited them from sleeping so they could engage in more commercial sex, starved them, and confiscated all of their earnings. Parker’s scheme ended in August 2023, when one of the minor victims called her social worker and asked for help. The social worker contacted law enforcement, and Parker was arrested at the Fall River hotel where she was harboring the victims.
Parker pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, and one count of sex trafficking a minor. She is scheduled to be sentenced on July 15, and faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Restitution is also mandatory for offenses involving sex trafficking.
Four of Parker’s co-defendants were previously convicted and sentenced. Tyreik Reid, 22, and Cory Primo, 44, were convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking each and sentenced to 70 months in prison. Avvani Jeffers, 24, was convicted of two counts of forced labor and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Tre’sean Reid, 23, was convicted of one count of forced labor and sentenced to time served, which amounted to 8 months in prison.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley for the District of Massachusetts; and Acting Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Grimming of the HSI New England Field Office made the announcement.
The HSI New England Field Office and Fall River Police Department are investigating the case.
Trial Attorney Francisco Zornosa of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Riley-Cunniffe for the District of Massachusetts are prosecuting the case.
Anyone who has information about human trafficking should report that information to the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free at 1-888-373-7888, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For more information about human trafficking, please visit www.humantraffickinghotline.org. Information on the Justice Department’s efforts to combat human trafficking can be found at www.justice.gov/humantrafficking.
