Court records show that 44-year-old Robert Hawkins of Denver was given a record-breaking 448 years in jail on Thursday for charges that included trafficking people, pimping, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the term is the longest ever recorded in the United States, not just Colorado.
After a sentence change in Arapahoe County, Colorado’s previous record was 401 years, Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Lara Mullin said at a press meeting on Thursday.
Mullin said that Hawkins will serve the 448-year term plus an extra 200 years for other charges at the same time.
A news statement from the Denver District Attorney’s Office says that Hawkins took advantage of four adult women and two children in Denver between 2018 and 2021. He used violence and threats to keep the victims under his control and made money by selling their bodies. Hawkins also killed a sex agent who dropped off one of the victims.
There were 18 charges against Hawkins, and in March he was found guilty by a jury. These included three counts of trafficking adults, one count of trafficking children, four counts of pimping adults, one count of pimping children, one count of sexually assaulting a child, and two counts of first-degree assault.
One of the victims wrote in an affidavit for a search request that Hawkins was “her master” and that the girls, some of whom were as young as 13, were forced to cook his meals and do commercial sex acts for money as per The Denver Post.
According to the statement, the girls had to make at least $500 every day. “They also had to meet a $5,000 goal to earn Hawkins’ trust.” This goal was meant to help pay for the girls to get a fake ID and birth certificate so they could go to California and do sex work there.
Hawkins was looked into after an adult victim came forward in December 2019. On October 6, 2021, an arrest warrant was granted, according to court records. Hawkins was caught in California on November 9, 2021.
A probable cause statement says that during the investigation, police found an old FBI case against Hawkins from 2012. In that case, the man was charged with multiple counts of child sex trafficking and found guilty of adding to the delinquency of a minor by the Arapahoe County Courts.
The affidavit said that one of the victims told police she tried to get away from Hawkins’ apartment by taking his car, but he found her and beat her up as a punishment.
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