East Texas Gets Tough on Human Trafficker

The illegal trafficking of underage girls landed an East Texas man in federal prison for 276 months. The human trafficker used the girls in prostitution.

Anthony Nelson, 33, from Tyler, Texas, admitted his guilt on November 10, 2014, on a charge of transportation of minors. During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that Nelson was already a registered sex offender. He previously served eight years in prison, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph.

See their complete report below:

“Anthony Nelson is on his way to prison where he will serve a very long sentence of imprisonment,” U.S. Attorney Malcolm Bales told the Morning Telegraph.  “He deserves every day of that lengthy term, and I hope that every day he is consumed with guilt and self-recrimination. There is no more important work for the U.S. Attorney’s office than to protect and come to the aid of those who cannot protect themselves. Nelson and his ilk will always be squarely in our sights and for that reason, I commend the work of the prosecution team for putting a stop to Nelson and his outrageous conduct.”

“Our children are our most valuable resource,” said Katrina W. Berger, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas.  “As such, our special agents from Homeland Security Investigations operate an active program called Operation Predator to rescue victims and identify and pursue prosecution against child predators. We routinely work with our law enforcement partners to achieve these goals.”

The lengthy sentence of more than twenty years also pleased local authorities, as they had been working on alleged drug cases against Nelson for quite some time. “We had some drug cases on him where an informant actually bought from him, but we never filed those cases because the feds took over the case with the human trafficking,” Smith County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Paul Black told the local paper. Black called the prostitution business in his East Texas community a multi-million dollar business.

Bob Price serves as senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.