Sacramento man sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking 17-year-old girl
A 26-year-old Sacramento man on Monday was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl in a Bay Area prostitution ring, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento.
On March 8, a jury found Robert Pierre Duncan guilty on charges of a conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of a child, sex trafficking of a child and escaping from custody.
Federal prosecutors said Duncan recruited the teen to engage in prostitution in Oakland and San Francisco, leading her to have sex with strangers for money that he kept. She was kept in an Oakland motel in fall 2018 as he posted online prostitution ads depicting the girl. At the time, Duncan was on parole for assault with a semiautomatic gun.
Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies recovered the girl in September 2018, and she was taken to a children’s group home in Woodland. But Duncan and co-conspirator, 25-year-old Eva Christian, “extracted” the teen from the group home in the middle of the night and had her back in Oakland engaging in prostitution by the following day, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
From then on, Duncan kept the girl at his Sacramento apartment. Prosecutors said Duncan used his cellphone and a GPS tracking application to monitor and direct the girl’s prostitution activity in Oakland.
Duncan was arrested in Sacramento by FBI agents on May 31, 2019. He broke out of custody and fled through midtown, where he was apprehended again a few blocks away from his initial arrest. Prosecutors said Duncan fought the arresting officer so violently that the officer required surgery for his injuries.
At trial, the prosecution showed the jury a letter Duncan sent to his co-defendant, Christian, in which he urged her to lie about Duncan’s knowledge the sex trafficking victim was 17 years old.
Christian pleaded guilty in April 2021 to misprision of a felony. Prosecutors said she is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 19.
This story was originally published September 14, 2022 at 4:26 PM.
