Woman sex trafficked 2 stranded teens she promised to help get back home, feds say

A woman was sentenced to serve more than two decades in prison after promising to help two teenage girls stranded in Tennessee, federal prosecutors said.

The teens were hungry, without money, had nowhere to stay and were looking for a way home to California when they encountered Marlette Laishell Smith in June 2020 at a Motel 6 in Memphis, according to prosecutors.

Smith, 29, of Rome, Georgia, told the 15- and 16-year-old she’d help get them home before driving them to Alabama, where she sex trafficked them “for her own financial gain,” prosecutors said.

A judge sentenced Smith to 25 years in prison after she previously pleaded guilty to two counts of sex trafficking a minor and two counts of transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama announced June 2.

“The victims, who found themselves in a vulnerable state entrusted this person for assistance in returning home,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Carlton L. Peeples, of the Birmingham Field Office, said in a statement.

McClatchy News contacted public defenders representing Smith for comment on June 5 and didn’t receive an immediate response.

On June 1, 2020, Smith came across the two teenage victims on a stairwell at the Motel 6, according to an indictment.

All they had were “the clothes on their back” and a dead cell phone, prosecutors said.

At the time, Smith was engaged in sex work as a means to support herself, according to a sentencing memorandum submitted on her behalf by her attorneys.

Smith promised to help the teens if they would travel with her to Alabama and make $200 each, according to prosecutors.

She posted advertisements for the victims on an escort page she maintained for herself, according to the sentencing memo. Then she drove them to Georgia and Alabama where she sex trafficked them, prosecutors said.

“Unquestionably, Marlette’s actions were deeply misguided and unlawful, but they were guided by her own experiences as a teenage sex worker and influenced by her yearslong struggles with mental illness and substance abuse, which impaired her decision making,” the sentencing memo says.

Ahead of her sentencing, Smith’s attorneys requested a lesser sentence of 15 years in prison, arguing her life experiences should be considered as context for her accused actions.

The sentencing memo details Smith’s traumatic childhood and adolescence involving how she was a victim of sexual abuse, placed in foster homes and youth detention facilities and later “engaging in sex work to support herself” at age 16.

According to her attorneys, Smith thought the two teens were already involved in sex work to make money and believed she was helping them “find work,” the memo says.

Smith’s prison sentence will be followed by 20 years of supervised release, prosecutors said.

As for the two teenagers, the FBI is making sure they are safe and will be reunited with their families, according to Peeples.

Stepchildren whipped, waterboarded by stepdad forcing them to sell brownies, feds say

Police chief paid for sex acts with underage girl while wearing his uniform, feds say

Missing 17-year-old found with suspected traffickers during traffic stop, TN cops say