A federal charge of sex trafficking of a minor was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against a man initially charged in Anne Arundel County with holding a 12-year-old girl as a prostitute, and supporting documents allege he threatened her.
The girl told officers with the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force that Derwin Smith, 42, took her to a big vacant house he promised would be hers if she worked for him, and then brought her to another house where he introduced her to four women who "were making him money" via prostitution dates arranged online, according to the supporting documents.
He took the girl, whom he picked up about two weeks ago in a section of Washington known for prostitution, to Atlantic City, N.J., as well as to Washington, where she performed sex acts for money that he kept, the documents allege.
When the girl told him she wanted go home, he yelled "that he was not going to take her home." Another time he told her that "he had a gun and that he would use it on her if she did not shut up," according to the documents.
He took her to the Knights Inn in Laurel, where officers retrieved her Monday and arrested him that night, according to the documents. Smith admitted taking the girl to Atlantic City and said he left her at the motel in Laurel while he spent time with his family in Glen Burnie, the documents say.
The minimum mandatory sentence for sex trafficking of a minor is 15 years in prison. The maximum is life in prison.