Houston man to spend more than 30 years in prison for teen sex trafficking

HOUSTON (KIAH) — A 23-year-old man is headed to prison after sexually exploiting teenage girls. Javon Yaw Opoku, 23, aka “Glizzy,” was convicted of conspiracy to traffic a minor for sexual purposes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Southern District of Texas.

According to U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani, U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. sentenced Opoku to 365 months in federal prison. “Opoku spent years exploiting and victimizing little girls and other vulnerable members of our community,” Hamdani said. “Opoku will now spend the next 30 years away from our community, unable to continue exploiting and victimizing our girls and our neighbors.

Opoku will serve 10 years of supervised release after completing his prison sentence. During this period, he will have to comply with numerous requirements aimed at restricting his access to children and the Internet. Opoku will also have to register as a sex offender.

From April 2019 to February 2020, Opoku and his co-conspirators recruited young teenage girls and forced them to engage in sexual acts with clients for money in cars and hotels around the “blade” by Bissonnet. The blade or “runway” is an area near 59 Southwest Freeway and Bissonnet Street in Houston, where traffickers typically place their victims to engage in commercial sexual activity.
Opoku and his co-conspirators passed or reassigned victims to each other, taught each other “the pimp game,” forced young girls to walk with the blade while Opoku and others kept the profits.

Young girls had to pay exit fees or get “beat up” to change pimps. Some traffickers demanded daily quotas from their victims every night. If victims failed to meet their daily quota, they were severely punished with beatings and humiliation.
Co-conspirator Jerreck Michael Hilliard, aka “Jmoney,” was sentenced April 12 to 292 months in federal prison.

Opoku will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

The Houston Police Department launched the investigation with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, as part of the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA).