Man pleads guilty to sex trafficking in Arkansas, will get at least 10 years in prison

Dana Royce Deffenbaugh
Dana Royce Deffenbaugh

Rather than face a federal jury on two sex-trafficking charges that had the potential to put him behind bars for as long as 25 years, Dana Royce Deffenbaugh pleaded guilty Monday to a single charge that carries a mandatory 10-year sentence.

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Deffenbaugh, 35, was scheduled to go on trial Monday on allegations that he forced a 17-year-old girl to engage in prostitution at Little Rock and North Little Rock motels in 2014.

After a friend of the girl's family called North Little Rock police in December 2014 to report that girls were being forced into prostitution under threat of being injured or killed, the girl showed a police officer a photograph on her cellphone that she had taken of Deffenbaugh, saying she knew him only as "Big Face."

An FBI agent testified in a pretrial hearing that she then found several similar sex trafficking reports from across the country that all involved a man known as "Big Face." The agent said she also found references to "Big Face" on Deffenbaugh's Facebook page, on which he was pictured with several young Hispanic girls.

The agent said the 17-year-old girl identified Deffenbaugh in the photographs as the man she knew as "Big Face," and said she had met him through another girl she'd met at a gas station about a month earlier.

The girl reported that "Big Face" declared upon meeting her and giving her drugs that she was his "ho," and threatened to harm her if she didn't have sex with up to 25 men a day, giving him all the money, the agent testified.

Deffenbaugh, who grew up in Aurora, Colo., and also has some family in Little Rock, decided before jury selection for his trial was to begin Monday to plead guilty to a charge of sex trafficking of a minor, for which he will be sentenced at a later date, after a presentence report is prepared. That charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a possible fine of up to $250,000.

Another charge he faced, sex trafficking by use of force or threats, carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison, but U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes agreed to a federal prosecutor's request to dismiss the second charge in exchange for Deffenbaugh's guilty plea to the first charge.

Holmes ordered Deffenbaugh to remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service until his sentencing in about three months.

Deffenbaugh is being represented by attorney Blake Hendrix of Little Rock. His case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Bragg.

Metro on 09/20/2016

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