Federal Jury Convicts Gary Man of Running Violent Sex-Trafficking Operation

A federal jury in Indiana convicted a Gary man on six felony counts Tuesday, finding that he ran a violent sex-trafficking operation out of his own home for years, using beatings, firearms and narcotics to control the women he forced into commercial sex.

The Justice Department announced the verdict against Anthony Mayers, 36, following a nine-day trial in the Northern District of Indiana. Jurors convicted him of four counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, one count of forced labor and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The numbers

Prosecutors said Mayers forced four women into commercial sex acts at his residence for his own financial benefit, and compelled a fifth woman to perform labor cleaning the area where the commercial sex took place. The case took nine days of testimony to try. Agents who searched the property recovered a ghost gun fitted with an extended magazine, two rifles, ammunition and bullet holes throughout the walls, according to prosecutors' account of the evidence presented at trial.

The four sex-trafficking counts each fall under the federal statute governing trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life when those aggravating factors are proven, as jurors found here. The forced-labor count falls under a separate statute that caps ordinary violations at 20 years, rising to any term of years or life if the offense involved conduct such as a death, kidnapping or aggravated sexual abuse. No sentencing date has been set, and it remains unclear how prosecutors will argue the counts should be weighed against each other at sentencing.

How the case came together

According to the Justice Department's account of the trial, Mayers approached vulnerable women with promises of large sums of money, stable housing or other necessities, then turned to violence once they were dependent on him. Witnesses testified that he beat victims, pulled their hair, slammed one woman's head against a fence, and fired a gun at a car as one victim attempted to escape. One witness testified that she watched Mayers inject another woman with what prosecutors described as a lethal dose of narcotics, causing her death, and that she was then forced to help move the woman's body.

The investigation that led to the charges was a joint effort among the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service and the police department in nearby Harvey, Illinois — a detail that reflects how trafficking operations based in one city, in this case Gary, in Indiana's northwest corner just across the state line from Chicago, can draw in law enforcement from multiple jurisdictions. Federal sex-trafficking law, largely built around the statute prosecutors used against Mayers, does not require proof that force was used when the victim is a minor, but does require it for adult victims — which is why establishing the beatings, threats and coercive control described at trial was central to the government's case.

Who was affected

Five women were identified in court documents and testimony as having been directly exploited by Mayers: four compelled into commercial sex and a fifth compelled into unpaid labor connected to that enterprise. Neither the Justice Department's announcement nor the news coverage of the verdict named the victims, consistent with standard practice in federal trafficking prosecutions, where victims' identities are typically protected in public filings and statements.

The case is also a reminder of how trafficking prosecutions ripple beyond a single household: agents recovering weapons and ammunition from the residence, a police department in a neighboring state contributing to the investigation, and a jury asked to weigh nine days of testimony about violence that several witnesses experienced directly.

Reaction

Justice Department and FBI officials framed the verdict as vindication for the women who testified against Mayers.

"Anthony Mayers is an extremely violent sex trafficker who preyed upon vulnerable women. The jury's verdict sends a clear message and helps vindicate the perils that the victims endured."

That statement came from Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. U.S. Attorney Adam L. Mildred, whose office prosecuted the case alongside the department's Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, credited the outcome to the investigative work behind it, saying "verdicts like this in extremely serious cases only happen after the superior investigative work of our law-enforcement partners." FBI Indianapolis Field Office Special Agent in Charge Timothy J. O'Malley put it more bluntly: "This criminal preyed on vulnerable women, abused them, and profited off their suffering. The FBI will relentlessly pursue violent offenders like him, break apart the coercive systems they build, and ensure they are held fully accountable for every act of harm they inflict."

Local coverage out of Indianapolis and wire-syndicated reporting picked up by outlets outside Indiana both leaned on the same set of trial details released by prosecutors, underscoring how thinly the public record here is drawn directly from the Justice Department's own account rather than independent court reporting from inside the courtroom.

What happens next

Mayers remains in federal custody pending sentencing, which has not yet been scheduled. Under the statutes he was convicted of violating, a federal judge will have to weigh sentences that individually range from a 15-year mandatory minimum up to life in prison, then decide how those terms run relative to one another — concurrently or consecutively — a decision that in cases involving multiple trafficking counts and a death connected to the conduct often stretches out sentencing hearings and pre-sentencing investigations for months. Wire coverage of the verdict did not report a sentencing date, and the Justice Department's announcement gave no indication of when that hearing will be held.

No additional defendants have been publicly identified in connection with the case, and the Justice Department's announcement did not indicate whether the woman's death during the course of the trafficking scheme is the subject of a separate state or federal homicide investigation.