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Norfolk resident Michael Jabaar Wilkins, 39, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on a federal conviction for his role in exploiting at least three women in Northwest DC for his own financial gain for most of the 2010s.
According to federal prosecutors, between 2011 and 2019, Wilkins induced and coerced at least three women to travel from Virginia to DC to engage in sex acts, for which he was paid after he took sexually explicit pictures of them and advertised the photos online.
The activities took place in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington.
As part of his operation, Wilkins repeatedly physically assaulted two of the women, even knocking one unconscious in a particular instance and leaving her with a serious injury to her eye.
Prosecutors noted that at least one of the attacks was caught on a home surveillance video that was reviewed by investigators prior to his scheduled trial.
Wilkins also used verbal abuse, threats, and emotional manipulation to keep the women doing his bidding, all for his own financial gain.
He was arrested in November 2019 following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department and FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.
Wilkins has been detained since.
Less than a week before his trial was scheduled to begin, he pleaded guilty in July 2021 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.
Following his release from prison, Wilkins was also ordered by the judge to serve 10 years of supervised release.
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