SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota — A South Dakota man is expected to spend more than 30 years behind bars after pleading guilty Wednesday to a federal sex trafficking charge.
Tajahn Clinton, 35, of Sioux Falls, was arrested a year ago and initially charged with one count of sex trafficking a child. Since then, the list of charges against Clinton has grown, as has the number of alleged victims. Officials say that he victimized nine people, three of whom were minors.
Clinton pleaded guilty to sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. His plea follows two guilty verdicts in recent months from other men in sex trafficking cases that included some of the same victims, the Argus Leader newspaper reported.
Carl Campbell, 35, was convicted in February of sex trafficking involving two minors and one adult. Emmanuel Nyuon, 34, was convicted a month ago on two sex trafficking counts that involved a 14-year-old girl. The two now await sentencing, as does Clinton.
Another man named Mohammad Araboudi, described by police as a business partner of Nyuon's, awaits trial on four sex trafficking charges.
Each case involved online prostitution advertisements.
KSFY-TV reported that in Wednesday's plea deal, the parties agreed that Clinton would likely be sentenced to 402 months — or 33½ years — behind bars.
Susan Omanson, a Sioux Falls minister who works with victims, told the newspaper that she's impressed by the track record of the U.S. Attorney's Office in South Dakota in recent years as it relates to trafficking cases.
"There's a real sense that we have a problem, and we're going to do everything we can to deal with it," she said. "Pretty soon, the traffickers will understand that this isn't a safe place to do business."
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