LOS ANGELES — A Southern California man who admitted to sex trafficking a 15-year-old girl, subjecting her to a month of sexual abuse, and advertising the victim as a prostitute was sentenced Monday to 160 months in federal prison.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced that Darrius Marques Sutton, also known as “Biz,” 26, was sentenced by United States District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr., who said he would have imposed a longer sentence had Sutton not been sentenced previously to more than four years in state prison on related pimping charges.
“This defendant’s conduct was horrific and warranted the lengthy sentence imposed by the court today,” said United States Attorney Eileen M. Decker.
“He repeatedly sexually assaulted children, and he filmed the assaults – at times laughing during the attacks. His callous behavior and willingness to sell the bodies of his young victims for his own financial gain is abhorrent and demonstrates a complete lack of respect for all women and girls.”
In the federal case, Sutton pleaded guilty in June to one count of sex trafficking of a child.
Over the course of month-long spree in 2011, Sutton “repeatedly engaged in violent sexual assaults on young women, and [he] appears to have taken delight in
subjecting his victims to inhumane and humiliating treatment while breaking them into his stable of prostitutes,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court.
At Monday’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors said that, over a five-month period, Sutton had posted at least 60 advertisements for prostitution on Backpage.com, some of which offered minor victims.
“It is difficult to imagine sexual assaults more egregious than defendant’s. As defendant admits, he repeatedly raped…a 15-year-old girl, and recorded himself and others doing so – at times while she was unconscious, including on at least one occasion with a vodka bottle,” prosecutors wrote in court papers, which noted a video recorded by Sutton in which he violently punches a young woman in the face, apparently breaking her nose.
Sutton is one of four men who were indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2015. The federal case followed a state court prosecution of the men in which Sutton was convicted of conspiracy to pimp a minor. In the state case, Sutton was sentenced to 52 months in prison.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Innocence Lost Task Force and the Los Angeles Police Department Detective Support and Vice Division, Human Trafficking Unit.