Leader of ‘Scheme Team’ gang sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A 25-year-old Fairfax man was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking a child. This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington, D.C., and the Stafford County Sheriff's Office.

Alexis Rahkeem Carter, a.k.a. "Bishop," pleaded guilty Aug. 31.  According to court documents, Carter was a leader of a gang known as "Scheme Team."  In addition to robbery, narcotics, and weapons trafficking, Carter and Scheme Team generated revenue by sex trafficking teenage girls and adults. One of the girls trafficked by Carter was 15 years old. Carter instructed victims to lie to lie about their age to customers, unless a customer requested an underage girl. Despite their youth, Carter instructed the victims to submit to any sex acts the customers demanded. In addition to exploiting these minors for profit, Carter also used these victims for his own sexual gratification.

Carter sex trafficked women and girls in 2014 and 2015 in Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Carter required victims to earn a monetary quota of $1,000 per day, and the victims generally met this quota. Carter received nearly all of the commercial sex proceeds earned by the girls he sex trafficked, and he sometimes required victims to submit to searches to ensure they were not keeping any of the prostitution proceeds.

To keep victims compliant, Carter frequently provided them with alcoholic beverages and controlled substances, including OxyContin, Percocet, molly, spice (also known as "K2"), Xanax, Roxicodone, and marijuana. Carter also told his victims he had guns, threatened them with violence, and used physical force on them, including pulling their hair and shoving them.