A Chesapeake man pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges of sex trafficking a minor in Hampton Roads.
Denzel Akeem Loftin, 32, initially was charged with five felonies relating to activities from October to November 2022, including obstruction of a sex trafficking investigation and production of child pornography. He was arrested Nov. 3 in Norfolk’s Young Terrace neighborhood following a sting operation in which an undercover FBI agent, in conjunction with local law enforcement, posed as a 17-year-old girl to set up a meeting, according to an affidavit.
The mandatory minimum penalty for sex trafficking a minor is 10 years in prison and the maximum is life in prison, according to the plea agreement. He is scheduled to be sentenced in November in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.
Investigators determined Loftin was the user behind a social networking account that was enticing young girls into commercial sex, including multiple girls reported missing from across the country, with him serving as their pimp. The sex trafficking charge he pleaded guilty to stemmed from him soliciting sex with a missing 14-year-old Colorado girl being sought by the Denver Child Exploitation Human Trafficking Task Force.
The task force informed FBI Norfolk in October that the teen had been trafficked to Virginia. One of the provocative ads promoting her as a sex worker included Loftin in the background, according to the affidavit.
An undercover police officer set up a “date” with the 14-year-old at a hotel in Chesapeake, and police confirmed through surveillance that she was with Loftin at a Virginia Beach hotel prior to meeting with the undercover officer. The 14-year-old arrived at the hotel with two other females, and they were taken into custody after assaulting multiple officers, according to court records.
One of the other females was a 17-year-old who had been reported missing in St. Louis and had been flown out only a few weeks before the 14-year-old. The prosecutors said digital evidence recovered during the investigation included a video of Loftin engaging in sex acts with her in addition to sex trafficking her, according to the statement of facts.
The other female who showed up to the hotel as part of the sting was in her early 20s and had previously described to police Loftin’s sex trafficking methods — which were consistent with that described by other women — after she reported him assaulting her in July. At the time, she described Loftin as a “shark pimp,” meaning he fishes for women online.
His methods included communicating with women and girls over the social networks Tagged and Instagram, using a variety of cellphone numbers, promising to take care of their finances, and posting lewd advertisements of them to popular escort websites. He was also using a Virginia Beach hotel for “in call” commercial sex, meaning the clients would travel to the women, while also setting up meetings at other locations throughout Hampton Roads, according to the affidavit.
Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, [email protected]
