"Reggie," of East Providence, Admits to Sex Trafficking Teens

EAST PROVIDENCE, RI—On August 10, Reginald "Reggie" Chaney of East Providence will find out how many years he'll spend behind bars for forcing two teenage girls — age 15 and 16 respectively — into prostitution last year.

Chaney, 20, will serve time along with two co-conspirators who brutalized and threatened the two girls with a TASER as they were ordered to pose for racy photos in a Seekonk motel in January 2015. The photos were then posted in advertisements on the Backpage.com website, which caters to pimps and prostitutes to sell sex.

Chaney admitted in U.S. District Court in Providence on Tuesday that he, along with Brian Desmarais, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, and J'Maire Wray, who was 15, drove the girls to motels in Seekonk and various locations in Rhode Island to have sex with Johns who responded to the ads.

Chaney was arrested after an investigation that began when the 16-year-old victim went to Hasbro Childrens' Hospital. Police responded to a report of sexual exploitation offenses. He has been held as a Superior Court probation violator on a prior weapons charge ever since.

According to a criminal complaint filed in January, detectives learned that Chaney used a TASER on the victims the night the girls were photographed in their underwear and “continually threatened to use the taser [on one of the victims] if she refused to do anything.”

Chaney reportedly collected anywhere from $60 to $250 for each sexual act he organized between the Johns using Backpage.com and the underage girls.

In another instance, according to the complaint, a John in Charlestown “declared they appeared too young and asked them to leave,” giving the victim $60 for gas.

In another, one of the victims, after a night at the motel in Seekonk, was led to a car where another John was waiting in the back seat. When she refused to have sex, he reportedly held her arms against her side and raped her.

The John then paid Chaney the money and the victim told police that she believed the rape was brutal lesson planned by Chaney “in retribution for her unwillingness to perform sexual intercourse with his clients.”

Wray was sentenced in September to a total of 15 years with six to serve and began his sentence at the Rhode Island Training School until a modification hearing to be held at a later date. During that hearing, his sentence could be modified or continued to serve at the Adult Correctional Institutions before his 19th birthday.

Desmaris, now 18, pleaded no contest to two counts of sex trafficking of a minor and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of a minor before Family Court Judge Michael B. Forte in November. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with 19 months and two days to serve. The remainder of the sentence was suspended with probation.

Desmaris will began his sentence at the Rhode Island Training School until a hearing before his 19th birthday during which a Family Court judge will decide if it should be modified or if he should be transferred to the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston, the state prison.

“This case is a stark reminder that sex trafficking can and does happen in every community. It is truly disturbing for someone as young as the defendant to be manipulating other teens and forcing them into the commercial sex industry,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin. “I commend the cooperative efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement to save these young victims. That cooperation between agencies is critical to shutting down these types of operations.”

Authorities have launched many sting operations targeting Johns using the Backpage.com site to solicit sex in recent years in an effort to combat the scourge of sex trafficking of minors.

Cranston police launched a sting in February, arresting 13 men, including a Dartmouth professor. Seekonk police arrested 11 in March. Coventry and West Greenwich police arrested seven last December.

The most notable was another Cranston-led sting in March that netted 17 arrests, including a 21-year-old Providence woman who was trafficking a 16-year-old girl.

The stings focused on Backpage.com have received some criticism. The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement in response to the March Cranston sting:

"Human trafficking is a scourge, and efforts to eradicate it are to be applauded. However, as this operation makes clear, law enforcement stings like this one often end up having little to do with trafficking," said ACLU of Rhode Island Policy Associate Hillary Davis. "Conflating prostitution with trafficking does nothing to help the trafficking victims who remain ensnared while consenting adults are pursued and arrested. By humiliating and charging johns for seeking consensual sex and by giving prostitutes arrest records in the name of 'helping' them, these operations misleadingly purport to crack down on human trafficking, when their major effect is just to make the lives of prostitutes more difficult and dangerous, driving sex work even deeper into the shadows."

Cranston Police Chief Michael J. Winquist, in response, said that the reality is victims of sex trafficking are often forced into those shadowy places by people who manipulate, often with physical and emotional abuse mixed with drugs. Often, the chief said, the only way to reach a victim of sex trafficking, or to provide support to someone involved in prostitution who needs help, is through an arrest.

"It is rare for victims of human trafficking to seek assistance on their own as their ability to recognize a need for help is diminished from drug use and conditioning that their lives are worthless," Winquist said. "We will not shield the identities of individuals who come into the City of Cranston looking to pay for sex and will continue to be transparent by making the names of those arrested available to the public through our Department website and media releases.”