A man living in North Texas was sentenced by a Tarrant County jury on Tuesday for sex trafficking of minors and sexual assault.
Otis Wesley Lang, 37, will spend the rest of his life behind bars after the jury sentenced him to 25 years on each of three counts of sex trafficking and two counts of sexual assault of a minor. The convict will serve the sentences concurrently, putting Lang behind bars for the next 125 years.
“We will protect the most vulnerable in our society,” said Tarrant County assistant criminal district attorney Lindy Borchardt in a news release. “We are sending a strong message that our young girls will not be the prey of sex traffickers.”
During the sentencing trial, Borchardt told the jury: “Our young girls are not for sale.”
Prosecutors explained that Lang met two teenage girls in 2019 through a mutual acquaintance before grooming them for prostitution. He was convicted of sexually assaulting one of the girls, who was a teenager at the time of the attack.
In addition to the sentence, Lang is also required to pay a $12,500 fine.
A resident of Arlington, Texas, at the time, Lang was previously convicted on a charge of pandering to a minor in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to a sex offender registry search. That conviction was handed down on April 29, 2010.
Nevada records indicate that Lang was released from High Desert State Prison in 2017. He is listed as a non-compliant registered sex offender in the state.
Sex trafficking is a growing problem in North Texas. In 2021, a special task force made 115 felony arrests for sex trafficking crimes.
A Data Brief published by Tarrant County showed that reported cases of human trafficking increased by 135 percent between 2015 and 2019. The data indicated that more than 70 percent of cases involved individuals who were trafficked for sex work.
Approximately 2,500 people in Tarrant County are believed to be trafficked annually. Eight out of ten victims are female, and the crime disproportionately affects non-citizens. Many of these people are considered vulnerable due to being in the country illegally and having few prospects for income.
In January 2022, Tarrant County officials launched a public awareness campaign, encouraging residents to report possible sex trafficking. One of the goals of the effort is to help people recognize that the majority of sex trafficking victims are forced into sex work through threats of violence rather than actual imprisonment.
The task force hopes to educate parents about the ways in which social media is used to find victims and how online marketplaces are often used for sex trafficking operations. In 2021, the task force identified more than 12,000 online posts from the DFW area that offered sex for money in a 24-hour operation.
Underreporting is a significant barrier to prosecution. Underreporting happens when victims and witnesses do not report information to law enforcement.
It also occurs due to a lack of training, for officers tend to underreport when unsure how to report information. Two studies published in 2020 indicated that only 6-18% of possible cases are reported.
Many jurisdictions, including Tarrant County, have altered the way they handle women involved in sex trafficking. In decades past, women were often arrested and charged with solicitation, leading to a long-term stigma that did not deter the problem.
More agencies today view women involved in sex work first as victims, which opens avenues for assistance and pathways out of the activity.
The Fort Worth Police Department provides a hotline, 817-392-4091, for reporting possible human trafficking. The National Human Trafficking Hotline can be utilized by calling 888-373-7888 or texting 233733.