Cecil County man gets 12 1/2 years for sex trafficking at Elkton hotel

U.S. District Court Judge Ellen L. Hollander imposed the 150-month sentence on the defendant — Xavier Lee, 44, of Elkton — on Thursday (Jan. 19) during a federal court hearing in Baltimore, prosecutors said.

In addition, the judge ordered Lee to pay $15,600 in restitution to a minor victim in the case; to serve 25 years of supervised probation after his prison release; and to register as a convicted sex offender, prosecutors added.

Lee had pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a minor during an earlier U.S. District Court hearing, as part of a plea deal, the agency reported.

Federal prosecutors reported that Lee — whose alias is “X” — operated an illicit prostitution business “almost exclusively out of a hotel located in Elkton” for more than five years and that he always rented the same room to prostitute the women. Investigators and prosecutors have not released the name of that hotel.

A federal grand jury handed up an indictment against Lee in December 2019, after an investigation involving municipal, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Lee operated his prostitution business out of the Elkton hotel from roughly 2013 to March 2019, according to USAO officials and Cecil Whig archives.

Federal prosecutors referred to Lee as a “pimp” when announcing the indictment against him in December 2019.

Describing a typical business day for the defendant, prosecutors outlined that Lee arrived at the Elkton hotel at approximately 11 a.m. with a “group of women” he would be prostituting and rented his usual room — and sometimes additional units if he had “sufficient business” scheduled.

“Lee remained on the premises of the hotel throughout the day, met with customers in the room as they arrived and collected the money due from the customer, then sat in his car in the parking lot,” a USAO spokeswoman outlined in December 2019, shortly after a federal grand jury indicted Lee, adding, “After the last customer, Lee and the women left, typically by 6:00 p.m.”

Prosecutors noted that Lee often transported the women he planned to prostitute across state lines to reach that hotel.

Lee ran his prostitution business according to a “set pattern and protocol,” which, in part, involved him posting advertisements of women he made available for “commercial sex acts with paying customers,” according to prosecutors.

“The ‘profiles’ of the females whom Lee was prostituting included photographs, descriptions and fictitious names. The website also listed the cost of prostitution appointments, described services that were available, and allowed customers to post comments,” prosecutors detailed.

Lee operated the website — www.wehavefuntimes.com — where he posted the advertisements of women he made available for “commercial sexual acts with paying customers,” prosecutors said. That website was seized by the FBI, in conjunction with the Maryland State Police and the USAO, during the course of the investigation, prosecutors added.

“For a time, Lee also operated a different website, where he offered a subscription pornographic service to paying customers,” prosecutors reported.

The plea agreement accepted by Lee covers a wide range of criminal activity that occurred during the past decade that he operated as a pimp.

According to that plea agreement, for example, Lee admitted that he had sexual contact with a juvenile — identified only as “Minor Victim 5” in court records — beginning when Minor Victim 5 was 14 years old.

“Lee recorded his sexual contact with Minor Victim 5, when Minor Victim 5 was 15 and 16 years old. Investigators recovered eight separate videos from Lee’s electronic devices, each of which had been recorded by Lee and each of which documented the sexual abuse of Minor Victim 5 — depicting Minor Victim 5 engaged in sexual acts with Lee or with another adult man. Lee admitted that he was aware of Minor Victim 5’s true age,” according to federal prosecutors and Cecil Whig archives.

In addition, Lee admitted that he had another juvenile — Minor Victim 4, who was 16 and then 17 years old when victimized — carry out “prostitution dates at Lee’s direction,” prosecutors reported.

“These prostitution dates were arranged through Lee’s website. Lee was aware of Minor Victim 4’s true age during the time because Minor Victim 4 advised Lee of her true age,” a USAO spokeswoman explained.

The investigation leading to Lee’s arrest, indictment, guilty plea and sentence was handled by the Maryland Child Exploitation Task Force, which, led by the FBI, was created in 2010 to combat child prostitution.

The task force has members from 10 state and federal law enforcement agencies, and it coordinates with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Maryland State Police Child Recovery Unit to identify missing children being advertised online for prostitution.

Elkton Police Department, the Cecil County State’s Attorney’s Office and Maryland State Police were among the numerous municipal, county, state and federal agencies involved in the criminal case.