Silver State Times

A 55-year-old Las Vegas man who illegally sought sexual favors from three New York City girls was sentenced to prison earlier this month.

Robert Marcellus Jones Jr. used Facebook and phone calls to communicate with the three victims. He urged the girls to send sexually explicit images of themselves to him, promising to pay them a weekly allowance in return for sexual attention and nude photographs and videos.

The abuse took on a personal level on Nov. 2, 2018, when Jones purchased two airline tickets and had two of the girls fly to Las Vegas. He picked them up at the airport and took them to his home, where he sexually assaulted them.

Three days later, the National Human Trafficking hotline received a tip about Jones’ criminal behavior. He was arrested on Nov. 8, 2018, and a forensic review of his cellphones revealed sexually explicit images of the girls.

Jones was charged in April 2019, and pleaded guilty in November 2019 to one count each of distribution of child pornography, receipt of child pornography, transportation of minors for prostitution or other illegal sexual activity, and coercion and enticement.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and U.S. District Judge Kent J. Dawson added 15 years of supervised release.

Officer Larry Hadfield of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Office of Public Information, told Silver State Times that the FBI was in charge of the case, with the Las Vegas Police Department assisting.

Hadfield said law enforcement tries to help victims of crimes like the ones committed by Jones.

“As far as human trafficking, yes sir,” he said. “We do normal enforcement along the areas where there's human trafficking, and we contact those that we believe are our victims of human trafficking. We try to get them the assistance.”

Hadfield said that includes assisting women involved in prostitution 

“We try to get the women out of their positions so they don't fall back into it,” he said. They refer the victims to a variety of services designed to help them.

Nevada is the only state in the nation where prostitution is legal, albeit only in licensed brothels and only in counties that allow it. State law prohibits it in counties with a population of 700,000 or more; only Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, meets that limit.

It is legal in Churchill, Elko, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lander, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Storey and White Pine County counties, with various laws in each county. Only seven counties actually had legal brothels currently operating.

It is prohibited in Clark, Washoe, Pershing, Douglas, Eureka and Lincoln counties, as well as Carson City, the state capital.

“So prostitution is only legal in actual businesses or brothels,” Hadfield said. “It is not legal in any other street or anything like that, whereas in Clark County, it is not legal at all. Prostitution is illegal in Clark County, Nevada, regardless of how you represent it.”

According to the UNLV Center for Crime and Justice Policy, Nevada is ninth in the nation for most human trafficking cases, reporting 199 cases in a single year. In Nevada, sex trafficking is the most common form of trafficking, comprising 89% of trafficking cases in the state. This is higher than the national percentage of sex trafficking cases, where 71% of total trafficking cases are centered around selling sex.

Acting U.S. Attorney Christopher Chiou for the District of Nevada and Special Agent in Charge Aaron C. Rouse for the FBI made the announcement that Jones had been sentenced to federal prison. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elham Roohani and Brian Whang prosecuted the case.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood and for information about internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.