A 27-year-old member of the Forum Park Crips gang has been sentenced to nearly 29 years in federal prison for his involvement in a sex trafficking operation targeting teenage girls. The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Damarquis McGee, also known as Lilblue, pleaded guilty on August 26, 2024. U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr. sentenced McGee to 348 months in prison after hearing evidence about his exploitation and abuse of several teenage victims.
The court described McGee’s actions as “horrific” and called him “every parent’s worst nightmare.” Judge Hanks noted that McGee exploited his victims through force, violence, threats, rape, and coercion for personal entertainment before discarding them. After serving his prison sentence, McGee will be under supervised release for 15 years with restrictions on contact with children and internet use. He will also be required to register as a sex offender, with restitution to be determined later.
“McGee systematically exploited young teenage girls for personal gain, using violence, intimidation, and fear. For far too long, these young girls were treated as commodities, instead of people,” said Ganjei. “Today’s sentence cannot erase the trauma the victims endured, but it does affirm a fundamental truth: their lives have value, their voices matter, and those who abused them will be held accountable.”
From April 2019 to February 2020, McGee and others recruited young teenage girls and forced them into commercial sex acts around the Bissonnet area near I-59 Southwest Freeway in Houston—an area known for such activity.
Victims were passed among traffickers or reassigned after paying exit fees or suffering beatings if they tried to leave one pimp for another. Some traffickers set nightly quotas; failure to meet them resulted in severe punishment.
Co-conspirators Michael Anthony Gonzalez (Mumbles), Jerreck Michael Hilliard (Jmoney), and Javon Yaw Opoku (Glizzy) received sentences ranging from 20 to just over 30 years for their roles in the conspiracy.
McGee remains in custody pending transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kate Suh, Anthony Franklyn, Amanda R. Alum, and former AUSA Richard W. Bennett prosecuted the case.
The investigation was led by the Houston Police Department as part of the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA), which includes multiple agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement - Homeland Security Investigations and Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
HTRA is composed of local law enforcement agencies like HPD along with federal partners including FBI; ICE-HSI; Texas Attorney General’s Office; IRS Criminal Investigation; Department of Labor; Department of State; Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission; Texas Department of Public Safety; Department of Homeland Security – Office of Inspector General; Social Security Administration – OIG; Sheriff’s Offices from Harris and Montgomery counties; all working together with district attorney offices from Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend Counties.
Since its formation in Houston in 2004 by the United States Attorney’s office—which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice—the HTRA has served as a model program both nationally and internationally for victim identification and prosecution efforts related to human trafficking offenses across Southeast Texas’ broad jurisdiction covering more than nine million residents (source). The Southern District's main office is located in Houston but also operates branches throughout Galveston, Corpus Christi, Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville (source). With more than 200 attorneys employed across these locations (source), past leaders have included figures such as Alamdar Hamdani (2022–2025) (source) among others.
