Man gets life term in ‘reign of terror’ as sex trafficker

An East Texas pimp who trafficked children and adults in an “eight-year reign of terror” in Houston was ordered Monday to serve a life sentence in federal prison.

David Wayne Mearis, 45, of Orange, was given five concurrent life terms to be followed by 25 years of supervised release if those sentences are ever set aside. U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt also sentenced him to pay nearly $1 million in restitution to multiple victims.

The man an FBI official referred to as a “career pimp” was convicted in October 2019 by a federal jury of forcing several girls intoprostitution and grooming teen victims for gigs that endured into their adult years. He threatened, abused and peddled his victims online and on the streets day and night — including one who was developmentally disabled. He operated in north Houston and the infamous Bissonnet Track, known internationally as a hot spot for picking up prostitutes.

At the hearing Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Zack called Mear is a predator who used women as renewable resources “over and over and over again.” She pushed the judge to hand downa life term, saying the defendant subjected one child to a “reign of terror” with thousands of “sweaty disgusting strangers climbing on top of that little girl and raping her for their sexual pleasure.”

“Howdo you erase being raped over 4,000 times?” she asked, referencing her rough estimate of the “dates” the woman had endured.

Two of his victims attended the in-person sentencing by phone. Both declined to speak prior to

sentencing, but Zack read from a statement by one of them, a 30year-old woman compelled to attempt a bank robbery at Mearis’ behest.

Thewoman wrote, “Many days I thought might be my last, being beat as if not human. … I ask that you ensure that no other human has to be subject to the threat of Mr. Mearis. He has created distress and trauma to one toomany women and I hope we are the last victims of his destructive mind.”

A 25-year-old victim who provided another written statement said Mearis mentally and physically abused her. She referred to him in a written statement as a

“devil,” saying,“I was fearing for my life not knowing how to escape the humiliation that was going on.”

Eric Ashford, the defendant’s newcourt-appointed lawyer, said Mearis should not face a sentencing enhancement because the government failed to show proof of online posts advertising any of the victims when they were minors.

Mearis, in an olive-green jail uniform and white mask, stood facing the judge in a wide stance, holding a tabletop courtroom mike in his handcuffed hands. He said his trial counsel had been ineffective and called Zack, the prosecutor, a liar and said she should be arrested for perjury for unfairly accusing him of violence. He denied hitting the women, having nonconsensual sex with them or compelling them towork against their will in the sex trade.

Mearis grew up in Oakland, Calif., and was the child of a man who fathered more than 20 children and who was possibly a pimp, he told the judge. He earned his GED, studied business management, and told the court he considered himself an astronomer. Prior to sentencing he engaged in a meandering monologue about the minuteness of humanity in the universe and a back-and-forth with the judge about the existence of God and heaven.

The portrait that emerged at trial was of a man who began by promising romance and companion ship and then became controlling and violent. Four victim st estified that at various points Mearis kidnapped, slapped, hog-tied and gagged them.

He posted ads of at least three women on Backpage.com. Healso trafficked the women on Goodson and Airline drives in north Houston and the Bissonnet Track.

One victim testified she met him when she was 14 on a social network called MocoSpace and ran away to live with him. She told jurors he sexually assaulted her twice in 2016. Another victim from Orange County (Texas) said he made her find other women to work for him, a common practice among pimps.

Some women testified he confiscated their IDs and wouldn’t let them use their phones. He controlled where they could go, what they wore and ate, they said.

Mearis forced a 78-pound girl and another young victim to go on peanut butter sandwich diets to “fatten them up” in hopes they’d be more appealing to johns, witnesses said. He manipulated the SSI payments intended for a victim diagnosed with mental retardation and took all the money for himself.

The defense made the case that Mearis was simply the women’s boyfriend and had offered them protection while they voluntarily participated in commercial sex.

After a brief deliberation, the jury convicted him on two counts of sex trafficking of minors and three counts of trafficking adults between 2009 and 2017.