A Dallas man has been convicted of sex trafficking in connection to a brutal sex trafficking ring that has been in operation for about 20 years, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad Meacham announced in a news release.
Anthony Johnson pleaded guilty on May 10 to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking through force, fraud, coercion, and sex trafficking. His trial was scheduled for the same day; however, with his guilty plea, he did not have to stand trial.
Court documents show that Johnson, also known as “Macc Bucc,” admitted to forcing numerous women to engage in commercial sex acts for his financial profit. The 45-year-old admittedly forced the women to work long hours and made them turn over their proceeds to him. Whenever they fell short of the quotas he set or failed to follow his rules, he would beat them with an extension cord.
Johnson also instructed the women to steal from their patrons according to plea papers.
According to Chad Meacham, Johnson “systemically tormented his victims, convincing them they had no choice but to bend to his will.”
One of Johnson’s victims testified against him, saying that she was forced to travel across the country to engage in commercial sex throughout her time in his trafficking organization. In court documents, the woman, identified as “Adult Victim 7,” shared that she was brutally beaten whenever she attempted to leave the organization.
Before Johnson’s guilty plea, prosecutors were prepared to present a 911 call — made by the mother of another of his victims — in court. The victim had called her mother from a passerby’s phone and said, in tears, “Mamma, I wanna come home, they won’t let me come home… Mamma, he got me by gunpoint, he’s got these girls following me, he beat me up real bad.”
In a pretrial filing, prosecutors accused Johnson of continually running his organization with a contraband cell phone while awaiting trial in jail. According to prosecutors’ claims, Johnson continued to send instructions to the women via text, directing them on where to work, how to steal from customers, and when to quit the night’s work. He also allegedly asked the women to send videos of themselves as they had sex with their customers.
Johnson also pleaded guilty to running his trafficking organization while behind bars from 2014 to 2019, after being convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Johnson, now awaiting sentencing, could get up to life in federal prison.
Other people were charged in connection to Johnson’s trafficking ring. In April, Demetrice Deckard, his second-in-command, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in trafficking through force, fraud, and coercion. Like Johnson, she faces life in prison.
Ashley Neice, who conspired with Johnson to tell a victim not to cooperate with law enforcement, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. She faces up to 20 years in prison.
In the news release, Meacham warns that human trafficking is a crime perpetrated in Dallas as much as anywhere else. “It’s difficult to fathom that human trafficking happens on the streets of Dallas, but it does, every day,” he said.
“Those attempting to profit from commercial sex through the viciousness of human trafficking are causing significant harm in our communities,” said Christopher Miller, Acting Special Agent at HSI Dallas.
Meacham further encourages anyone being victimized or who knows a victim to reach out for help and call local law enforcement or National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. “As impossible as it may seem in the moment, there is a way out,” he said.
