Special to The News

Criminal District Attorney Bob Wortham announced Thursday that Johnny Ray Matlock, 25, of Silsbee, was found guilty by a jury of the first-degree felony of continuous trafficking of persons. It was the first human trafficking case in Jefferson County.

After the jury returned their verdict of guilty, the defendant agreed to waive his right of appeal and accepted a sentence of 60 years in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Matlock also pleaded guilty to the third-degree felony of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for that offense, the maximum allowed under the law.

Testimony at trial showed that from January until May 2016, Matlock trafficked four female victims, two of them minors, by forcing them to have sex with buyers for money. Matlock used social media, including Facebook and Snapchat, to lure in his victims. Once he convinced them to meet him at local motels, he forced them to pose for photographs in lingerie and posted them on the website backpage.com.

Testimony revealed Matlock rented rooms at Motel 6 at 220 IH10 North and the Regency Inn at 3715 College St. in Beaumont. After seeing ads online, buyers would meet the victims at these locations and pay for sex with them.

Matlock used force, fraud and coercion to control his victims and prevent them from leaving, the District Attorney’s Office said in an issued statement. He threatened them with guns, beat them and withheld food from them. He also prevented them from sleeping, and he watched their every move. Evidence showed Matlock kept all of the money that he forced the victims to earn on his behalf.

Beaumont police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office investigated the case, which was prosecuted by Kimberly Hobbs Pipkin, special crimes chief at the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office and Kirsta Melton, deputy criminal chief of the Human Trafficking and Transnational/Organized Crime Section of the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

“We are very pleased with the jury’s verdict and the outcome of the case. The jury sent a very clear message in returning such a quick verdict,” Pipkin said. “Matlock’s sentence ensures that he cannot victimize anyone else in our community. The decision to sentence him to 60 years in prison was made in large part because he waived his right to appeal. The victims and their families left the courthouse today knowing that this nightmare was finally over for good.”