Tyra Latrice Clark, 22, of Clarksville, Tennessee, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Kristi H. Johnson to serve a total of 108 months in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for sex trafficking of a minor, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca and Michelle A. Sutphin, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Mississippi.
Beginning on January 1, 2018, and continuing through January 5, 2018, Clark and co-defendant Courtney Tremel Louie were actively involved with the sex trafficking of a minor they had transported from Tennessee to Jackson. The minor was forced to perform commercial sex acts with men for money at various hotels.
Clark and Louie placed ads on Internet websites for commercial sex. The Jackson Police Department rescued the minor on January 5, 2018, from a locked apartment on Bailey Avenue in Jackson.
The defendants were indicted on March 7, 2018 and both pled guilty before Judge Jordan on August 17, 2018. Louie was sentenced on June 21, 2019, to serve a total of 141 months for his involvement.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Jackson Police Department and the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office jointly investigated the case. Assistant United States Attorney Glenda R. Haynes prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet as well as to identify and rescue victims.
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