A former resident of Fort Worth, Texas, and Tulsa, Okla., has been sentenced in federal court to serve 78 months in prison followed by 15 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to trafficking an underage girl to hotels in Cranberry Township and around Pittsburgh for prostitution in 2018.

Oscar Carter, 38, pleaded guilty in June, and was sentenced Nov. 1 by U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon.

He pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of an individual to travel to engage in illegal sexual activity and a related charge for conspiring with a co-defendant to commit that offense.

Co-defendant Shelby Summer Brown of Tulsa pleaded guilty to the same two charges in January 2020, and was sentenced to 78 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release.

Both violated the Mann Act by transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose having the minor engage in prostitution, according to U.S. Attorney Cindy K. Chung.

The pair coerced a 17-year-old girl to travel from Ohio to Pennsylvania, to engage in prostitution from March 6, 2018 through March 14, 2018, according to charging documents.

On March 6, Carter and Brown drove the minor from Ohio to Pittsburgh to engage in commercial sex acts. The co-defendants paid for advertisements about the minor on a website daily from March 6 through March 14. On those same dates, Carter obtained hotel rooms in and around Pittsburgh for the minor’s sex acts, according to charging documents.

Chung commended the FBI’s Pittsburgh Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes the Cranberry Township Police Department and the City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Carter.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.