Trafficking suspect ordered held

A Little Rock man who police say is a founding member of a violent Little Rock gang that formed 25 years ago was ordered Thursday to remain jailed, pending federal indictment, after his arrest last week on sex-trafficking allegations.

A veteran Little Rock vice detective who is a member of an FBI task force focusing on sex crimes testified that two women who were found selling sexual services at local motels in April are "beyond afraid" that Nathaniel Smith, whom they knew by the nickname "Traffick," will harm them in retaliation for their cooperation.

Detective Jennifer Hurd said the women told her that Smith acted as their pimp and subjected them to beatings and painful, forced sex if they failed to bring in at least $500 a day by prostituting themselves.

Another veteran officer, who is considered an expert on gangs, testified that Smith, 37, is a well-documented "upper echelon" member of Little Rock's gang community.

The gang expert, Todd Hurd, said Smith was a founding member of the Original Gangsters, formed in 1989, and, since at least 1993, has been a member of the Monroe Street Hustlers, a Bloods-affiliated gang whose members have been associated with numerous slayings in Little Rock as both victims and suspects. He said the Hustlers gang is under scrutiny as part of an investigation into a series of homicides in the city since late 2013. The investigation is known as Operation Cease Fire.

Jennifer Hurd, a member of the FBI's Denied Innocence task force, said the investigation leading to Smith's arrest began April 10, when vice officers received a cyber-tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about an advertisement for an escort on Backpage.com that appeared to feature a female younger than 18.

While vice officers investigated that tip, Hurd said, other officers went to the LaQuinta Inn at 200 S. Shackleford Road in Little Rock on April 24 in response to a manager's complaint that Smith threatened to have someone hurt her after she evicted him and "several girls." The manager reported that Smith had rented five rooms, and a heavy smell of marijuana was emanating from at least one of the rooms.

Officers found Smith in one room and arrested him on a warrant for failing to appear in court on a previous charge, Hurd said. She said the officers also found five girls, each of whom denied knowing Smith and said they had merely agreed to let him rent their rooms under his name so he could "earn points," presumably on a credit card or through the hotel chain.

Then on April 27, Hurd said, a confidential informant reported that Smith was trafficking several girls out of the Atria Inn at 6100 S. University Ave. According to the informant, Hurd said, one of the girls had a baby and wanted to get away from Smith but couldn't.

Meanwhile, the vice detective said, a male undercover officer tracked down the ad mentioned in the cyber-tip and arranged an April 29 "date" with that girl, who turned out to be a 19-year-old woman. The woman was taken into custody at the Atria Inn after agreeing to engage in oral sex for $60. Hurd said that when she later interviewed the woman, the woman was "shaking and crying" and admitted to being "beyond afraid" of someone.

Another officer spotted Smith at the hotel and arrested him on sex-trafficking allegations, Hurd said. She said officers also stopped a second woman as she was emerging from a room, who turned out to be a dancer at the Paper Moon strip club and who was later identified as Smith's "main girl" in the prostitution operation. She had a cut under her right eye but denied the other woman's claims that Smith had beaten her, Hurd said.

Hurd said that while the two women taken into custody at the Atria Inn were being questioned at the department's northwest precinct, Smith tried to intimidate them from a nearby room. The detective played an audio recording she made of his profane and angry remarks, in which he repeatedly called them "b**" and told them to "keep their mouths shut."

Hurd said the second woman told her that she had met Smith in Orlando, Fla., and had agreed to return to Little Rock with him in January or February. Hurd said the woman eventually revealed that Smith limited the women in his prostitution ring to one meal a day and wouldn't let them sleep if there was money to be made. Hurd said the woman also told her that if his prostitutes didn't make $500 a day for him, he would force them to have painful sex with him and would refuse to stop even after they cried and begged.

Hurd said both women told her that Smith often said, "I will take everything that makes you human from you."

Two days later, Smith had posted his $100,000 bond and was set free, Hurd said. But a male undercover officer had in the meantime arranged a "date" with another woman , and she told officers that Smith was staying at a Motel 6 on West Markham Street. Smith was arrested there on May 15 on a newly issued federal warrant. Hurd said that the next day, the motel staff called to report finding a loaded .45-caliber handgun hidden in a room where Smith had stayed. She said the gun matched the description of a gun that another woman had seen Smith carrying.

Defense attorney Kim Driggers cited the credibility of the prostitutes and Smith's medical history of paranoia among the reasons that U.S. Magistrate Judge Joe Volpe should release Smith. But in refusing, Volpe cited Hurd's experience in judging victims' credibility, and the fact that Smith was rearrested so soon after bonding out of jail.

Volpe said both were indicators that Smith presented a risk of danger to the community and to the women who worked for him in particular, as well as a flight risk. He also cited Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant's argument that Smith has more than five prior convictions and well-documented "extensive involvement" in a violent gang.

Volpe noted that a federal grand jury will likely decide within the next two weeks whether to indict Smith on a federal charge.

Metro on 05/23/2014

ADVERTISEMENT

More headlines

Upcoming Events