Oak Lawn police officer honored
His suspicions during traffic stop led to sex trafficking conviction
An Oak Lawn police officer honored last month for helping uncover a sex trafficking operation during a routine traffic stop is moving on to become the department’s new K-9 officer.
Officer Robert Carroll is looking forward to meeting his new partner, a young Malinois from Germany. He hopes the skills of a trained police dog will help detect weapons and drugs that are hidden from sight in a vehicle an officer pulls over for a traffic violation, for example.
In the 7 ½ years he has been an Oak Lawn officer, Carroll said he has recovered more than 30 guns from people who possessed them illegally.
But it was Carroll’s suspicions from an October 2019 traffic stop that led to him being honored. He stopped a vehicle because its bright beams were on and noticed two teenage girls who were passengers.
“The two girls were acting nervous,” Carroll said.
He also saw hotel key cards scattered inside the vehicle. The girls gave different stories about how they knew the driver. One said he was a family member, the other said he was a friend, police said.
Carroll also smelled marijuana from the car, which he said gave him cause to search the vehicle. He found adult sex toys and women’s lingerie, he said.
“I thought I better take this guy in,” he said.
The driver, David L. Smith, and the girls were brought to the police station and Carroll contacted the FBI.
The girls said Smith had kidnapped them and arranged for them to meet men in hotel rooms for sex, Carroll said. The police learned one of the girls had been reported missing by her family in Wisconsin.
Oak Lawn police called the Department of Children and Family
Services, which arranged for the girls to be taken back to their families, Carroll said.
Smith was charged with driving without a license. He was able to post bond and was released from custody, while the FBI investigated the sex trafficking crimes, Carroll said.
The FBI uncovered online ads showing the girls were available for sex in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri. Agents also checked security cameras at motels, looking for videos of Smith arriving with the girls, Carroll said.
In 2020, Smith was arrested again and in 2021, he pleaded guilty to a federal sex trafficking charge.
According to a report from the U.S. Justice Department, Smith took sexually explicit photographs of the girls, who were 16 and 17 years old at the time, and posted them online with ads for sex. Smith kept the money the girls received and at least once hit the 17-year-old girl in the face, because she had unknowingly accepted counterfeit money as payment from a customer. Another time, Smith hit the 16-yearold victim in the face after he learned she had contacted her mother, the Justice Department said.
Smith, 28, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was sentenced in March to 25 years in federal prison for sex trafficking two girls in the Chicago area and
Wisconsin.
U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr. also ordered Smith to pay $50,000 in restitution to each of his victims.
Smith “caused his minor victims irreparable harm and trauma by causing them to engage in commercial sex on numerous occasions,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie E. Ursini stated in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “These victims will carry the emotional scars of the defendant’s actions for the rest of their lives.”
Carroll said he has worked hard since he joined the Oak Lawn police force and made “a lot of high profile arrests,” which may have led to him being selected for the canine unit.
“I am very excited,” Carroll said. “I love dogs.”
There’s a lot of advantages to having a canine unit, Carroll said, including apprehending suspects who flee from an arrest. The Oak Lawn Police Department has not had a canine unit in three years, he said, so when the department decided to invest in a police dog, he eagerly applied.
Carroll, who has a 3-yearold German shepherd of his own, will not meet the dog that will be his partner until this summer. He will attend three weeks of training on handling and working with the new dog in July at a police dog training facility in Indiana.