Man re-sentenced for human trafficking in Waco federal court

A man was re-sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Waco after he earlier pleaded guilty to a violation of the Mann Act by transporting a person across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman found in spite of his appeal for a reduced sentence, Emmanuel Emil Bailey’s original sentence of 84-months in federal custody, 3-years on supervised release, a fine of $1,000 and $100 special assessment to the court was re-imposed.

On Wednesday Bailey’s lawyer filed notice of appeal of the re-sentence, court records showed.

On Feb. 18. 2016, then U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith, Jr., set Bailey’s original sentence, which was immediately appealed.

Pitman said in his order Tuesday after reviewing the original appeal “The court finds the mandate from Fifth (U.S.) Circuit (Court) for resentencing is limited to the appeal on special conditions of supervised release,” and those parameters were not met.

In the complaint filed in the case a sheriff’s deputy explains he was conducting an undercover operation aimed at identifying prostitutes, their handlers and the people who use their service.

On June 8, 2015, as part of the investigation, the deputy encountered a woman through an escort service ad and obtained her cell phone number, which he traced to adds for escort services in Beaumont, Houston, Killeen, Texas; Lafayette Louisiana; and Little Rock, Arkansas.

The deputy arranged a meeting with a woman named in the ads and arranged to meet her at a Waco motel and when she arrived, he and another deputy arrested her.

Undercover officers had seen the woman get out of a particular car in the motel parking lot, which still was there after she was taken into custody, the complaint says.

Other deputies took the man who was inside the car into custody and searched the vehicle, where they found other evidence that tied both the man and the woman to an escort service.

He later was identified as Bailey.