Chicago man sentenced to 28 years for sex trafficking women, girls

A Chicago man was sentenced to 28 years in prison last week for sex trafficking five women and girls after kidnapping two of them — the youngest of whom was 15, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Dennis Williams, 33, ran the operation out of hotels in Chicago and Lansing, at one point forcing a 17-year-old girl to help him while also assaulting her, the U.S. attorney’s office said. He often “restrained or assaulted” the victims to get them to turn over money they were paid in exchange for sex; he was arrested in 2023.

Williams would force one of the women, whom he referred to as “his money,” to take cocaine and other drugs to make her work more, according to court documents.

She later escaped from a hotel where Williams was keeping her, leaving her ID and other belongings behind, according to court documents. When she reached out to Williams to try to get her ID back, he told her he would give it to her if she got in his car. She got in the car as Williams sped away.

“He was going to kill me,” the woman told a loved one who picked her up after she jumped out of the moving vehicle, according to court documents. She was taken to a police station.

“The harm that he inflicted on [the victims] is likely to reverberate throughout the rest of their lives," assistant U.S. attorneys Sushma Raju and Michelle Parthum wrote in the government’s sentencing memorandum.

“Williams’ crimes were violent, exploitative, and incredibly serious,” the prosecutors wrote in the document.