AUSTIN –Attorney General Ken Paxton today commended the human trafficking unit of his office for its work to help apprehend a suspect who fled the country after he was charged with using Backpage.com for sex trafficking of a teenage girl in Texas.
Issac Lynn Williams, 28, was located in the Dominican Republic following a coordinated effort between the U.S. Marshal Services and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). Williams, who is now in custody in Florida, waived extradition and is awaiting transfer to Bexar County, Texas. He is charged with Compelling Prostitution of a Person under 18 and Continuous Trafficking of Persons.
In August 2014, the human trafficking unit of the Texas attorney general’s office collaborated with DPS to initiate an investigation into Backpage, which eventually resulted in the rescue of a 17-year-old victim who was being trafficked by Williams and Deborah Cooper, the other suspect in the case. Last year, Cooper pleaded guilty to Promotion of Prostitution of a Minor and agreed to testify against Williams as a condition of a plea deal for five years’ deferred adjudication.
“This case shows that we’ll go to whatever lengths and distance required to catch human traffickers and put them behind bars,” Attorney General Paxton said. “The human trafficking unit of my office is dedicated to relentlessly pursuing every perpetrator who seeks to prey on innocent and vulnerable victims of this heinous crime. We will work relentlessly to break the ability of those like Backpage to facilitate modern-day slavery.”