A Manchester man has been sentenced to prison for sex trafficking and other related crimes.
33-year old Darrius Decnan Redd was sentenced last week to 45 years in prison for sex trafficking an adult victim by force, fraud and coercion, five years for facilitating prostitution and 40 years for distributing a controlled substance to a person under 21.
According to evidence presented at the four and a half-day trial and court documents, Redd used deceptive and coercive tactics as well as physical force to compel a victim to engage in sex acts in exchange for money and kept all of the proceeds. Redd trafficked the victim in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Clive, and surrounding areas in March 2020. Redd also supplied the victim with a controlled substance and posted advertisements for paid sex acts with the victim and other women on an escort website.
Redd’s sex trafficking pursuits were not limited to one victim. Evidence at trial suggested Redd trafficked or attempted to traffic multiple women. Witnesses testified that Redd targeted vulnerable and broken women whom he could traffic and he had boasted about doing so for years. To recruit women for purposes of sex trafficking, Redd, among other things, plied the women with drugs, made video recordings of the women engaged in sex acts to use as blackmail, lied to the women about his intentions, and told the women that they owed him or others money.
At sentencing, United States District Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger ruled that, during the commission of his crimes, Redd had raped two women. She found further Redd had physically restrained those women and he had abducted them against their will. She also noted Redd had failed to express any remorse for his actions and he had lied while testifying at trial.
Manchester Police assisted the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation in this case, along with several other agencies across the state.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa urges anyone who suspects human trafficking is occurring to call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
