Beloit Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Sex Trafficking and Other Charges

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office - Western District of Wisconsin, a federal judge has sentenced 51 year old Beloit resident, Cory Hereford, to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and related charges. Hereford was convicted after a four-day trial in February 2022 of sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, maintaining a property for the purposes of distributing and using controlled substances, and of having committed sex trafficking of a minor while being a person previously convicted of a crime that required registering as a sex offender. The Court additionally imposed 20 years of supervised release.

The government presented evidence at trial that Hereford conspired with co-defendant, Tonyiel Partee, of Janesville, Wisconsin to recruit an adult victim struggling with drug addiction, to engage in commercial sex. He also enticed a minor victim, who was 16 years old at the time, with access to drugs. In some instances, he threatened to withhold the heroin to induce withdrawal sickness as a means of compelling the victims to engage in prostitution for his profit.

The case was investigated by the Janesville Police Department, with the assistance of the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation and the Rock County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Pfluger of the Western District of Wisconsin and Trial Attorney Slava Kuperstein of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit prosecuted the case.

Anyone who has information about human trafficking should report that information to the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free at 1-888-373-7888, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For more information about human trafficking, visit www.humantraffickinghotline.org.