How Louisiana human traffickers prey on vulnerable youth — and why it can be hard to stop

The victims were mostly teenagers, police say. The youngest was 13 years old. 

Kevontae Reed's arrest on human trafficking last month was one more line on a rap sheet that includes repeated accusations of sex crimes involving minors. It is not clear from the growing pile of arrest reports how many girls he allegedly trafficked for sex — at least four teens are specifically listed.

“He is a significant person that is of ultimate interest. With our office and many others,” District Attorney Hillar Moore III said.

Reed, 28, is now facing human trafficking-related charges for three different cases going back to 2019. But he has not yet been convicted of any sex crimes.

His attorney, R. Neal Wilkinson, declined to discuss the charges.

"My client is innocent," he said. "I'll leave it at that."

But Moore argues the case exemplifies the difficulty in prosecuting human trafficking — witnesses are nervous to testify, meaning his office has to painstakingly sift through text messages, photos, social media accounts and other information to build a case. 

“I really would like to see more funding going to investigations and awareness,” Moore said. “But right now we just have to stop the bleeding.”

Meanwhile, the story of exploitation laid out in arrest documents is sadly familiar to Dana Hunter, former executive director of the Office of Human Trafficking Prevention.

Hunter said the cases against Reed are emblematic of the complex relationships between traffickers and victims. And they illustrate how traffickers prey on vulnerable youth who don't have support systems, including children in Louisiana's foster care system, she said.

“Traffickers are very strategic in who they target,” she said. 

Three different cases, one suspect

His arrest last month was not Reed's first encounter with law enforcement.

Reed has been accused on multiple occasions of varying sex crimes involving juveniles as far back as 2015 — not just trafficking, but pandering, indecent behavior with a juvenile, solicitation for prostitutes and sexual battery. Today, however, he is not listed on any sex offender registry.

The first mention of human trafficking in any East Baton Rouge court documents related to Reed was in 2019.

A female victim of unknown age told authorities Reed was charging men between $150 and $500 to have sex with her.

Investigators said they believed trafficking had occurred, according to an affidavit. But Reed was charged with pandering and soliciting for prostitutes. Three years later, he was charged with human trafficking for that incident.

When authorities arrested Reed on April 1, 2019, he had $2,600 in cash in his possession. He told investigators it was from his tax refund, according to arrest documents.

Reed soon bonded out. But 2½ years later, he would be arrested again on similar charges.

In November 2021, investigators accused him of trafficking victims aged 13, 14 and 15.

Both the 13-year-old and 15-year-old victims in this case were recent runaways from the foster care system, police documents say. The two youngest told investigators that Reed — or “Weedy” as he was referred to — said they could stay with him at the Shades Motel if they “earned” it by “having sex with random men for money.”

“It felt like I was being forced to do it,” one of the girls told investigators. “They would dump me out on the streets if I didn’t make money.”

Reed was arrested on Nov. 5, 2021, and charged with one count of human trafficking and one count of sexual battery. A $100,000 bond was set; he was out the same day.

Both cases are still in court. The charge related to his 2019 arrest is set for a jury trial in June.

In the first months of this year, authorities said Reed violated the conditions of his previous release, as a new human trafficking case surfaced — again involving underage girls.

A girl younger than 17 contacted authorities, claiming she was trying to escape Reed. She said she met him when she was just 12.

“He would beat her and sometimes make her have sex with him,” the investigator wrote in the affidavit, adding the girl said Reed was “pimping” her and other underaged girls.

Records detail text messages between the two from Feb. 1 to 7. They appear to show him engaging in sexually explicit conversation with her and also asking how much money she made in a given night.

The girl told authorities Reed would keep all of the money she was paid for having sex with men at the Oyo Hotel, Quality Inn, and Microtel along Airline Highway in Baton Rouge and at other motels. Reed took precautions when booking these rooms, like wearing a mask and not using his real name, police say.

Reed was out on a hefty bond at the time for a previous trafficking case. 

“Reed also texted the juvenile, stating that she was the reason he had a $28,000 bond in the previous human trafficking case, and that she would be forced to make that money back,” the investigator wrote.

For the March 14 arrest, Reed was charged with one count of human trafficking and one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile.

A 'sophisticated' operation

Experts on trafficking say the schemes often involve numerous juveniles — and those in the foster system are often the victims.

“Foster youth are at higher risk of becoming victims of human trafficking,” Hunter said. “Victims are looking for needs to be met. They may be more vulnerable to a trafficker who's saying ‘I can provide you with these basic needs.’”

Hunter called traffickers “sophisticated,” deliberately targeting teenage girls who do not have the support of a biological family, and are transient or homeless.

Hunter said she has seen situations in which foster youth go back to a foster home or group home and recruit others on behalf of the trafficker.

The former state anti-trafficking director said the relationships between the adults and the victimized youths can be enormously complex, with “trauma bonds” forming. This can make it hard to get accurate testimony from victims.

“Breaking those trauma bonds is something that does not happen overnight,” Hunter said. “And in many cases (traffickers) are violent.”

Prosecutors said those bonds can cause the victims to resist cooperating with investigators.

Traffickers find ways to exploit the youths' vulnerabilities, ranging from giving them material things to filling missing roles in their lives, she said. 

"They have groomed them, and they have a really unique relationship that is hard to explain,” Moore said. “It’s complicated by age, pregnancy, mental health, drug addictions, and all of that plays into it.”

For those reasons and others, human trafficking can be extraordinarily difficult to prove and prosecute, Hunter noted.

“Across the nation, less than 5% of cases are prosecuted, and in Louisiana it's less than 1%,” Hunter said. “Survivors run for their lives once they get out. So they may be afraid to testify … there's also some Stockholm syndrome, where they begin to initially want to testify against the perpetrator, but then maybe recant.”

Time and evidence

Prosecutors in the DA’s office echo Hunter, saying human trafficking cases like Reed’s are inherently complicated, difficult to prove and difficult to prosecute.

Almost five years have gone by since Reed’s first arrest related to trafficking. 

The reason these cases take so much time — potentially allowing someone to go free and re-offend — is complicated, Moore said.

After initial arrests, new information can be developed that supports additional cases and forces prosecutors to rethink their strategy, he said.

A major part of investigating human trafficking is data collection.

Procurement of text messages, tracking movement through phone locations, expense records and social media advertisements for sex workers can be an arduous process. As time goes by during an investigation, suspects are sometimes able to come up with even the highest bond amounts.

“The criminal justice system is designed to allow people to bond out,” said assistant District Attorney Melanie Fields, noting "the vast amount of electronic material we have to go through” takes a lot of time.

To speed up timelines, Moore believes more support needs to be given to prosecutors and investigators.

“I don't think that enough money is being thrown at the problem,” Moore said. “I think the more attention you give something the better … But I don’t think that we have made it enough of a priority.”

A $1.6 million bond was set for Reed upon his most recent arrest last month. Soon after, Moore’s office asked a judge to revoke his previous bond.

On April 1, a judge agreed with prosecutors, which means even if Reed could meet the $1.6 million price tag, he would still be detained for violating previous bond conditions.

It is unclear what exactly is next for Reed's three cases. While the DA might think significant changes are needed to stop trafficking from occurring in Louisiana, he feels he has a strong case against Reed.

“It’s despicable what he has done, but we’ve devoted a lot of manpower and time,” Moore said. “I think the facts in this case will speak for themselves.”