Exonerated death row prisoner from Delaware convicted of sex trafficking charges in Hawaii
A 38-year-old man who was exonerated from Delaware's death row in 2017 has now been convicted on federal sex-trafficking charges in Hawaii.
A Hawaiian jury found Isaiah McCoy guilty on April 22 of four counts of sex trafficking three women and one child. At his sentencing hearing, scheduled for Aug. 18, McCoy faces up to life in prison.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said in a statement that the conviction vindicates the rights of women and girls who McCoy terrorized over several years in Hawaii.
"The defendant specifically targeted each victim's unique vulnerabilities and used false promises, brute physical force and psychological manipulation to compel the victims to engage in commercial sex for his own profit," Dhillon said in a statement. "There is no place in a civilized society for the defendant's atrocious conduct and the Justice Department is committed to standing up for vulnerable human trafficking victims and holding their traffickers accountable."
McCoy went from death row in Delaware to giving speeches about wrongful convictions then back behind bars in less than a year.
More: Exonerated death row inmate charged with sex trafficking
McCoy was accused of shooting 30-year-old James Munford in 2010 during a drug deal in the back parking lot of the Rodney Village Bowling Alley. The deal supposedly was for 200 ecstasy pills and crack cocaine, but prosecutors said he pulled a gun and killed Munford.
He was found guilty in June 2012, but his conviction and death sentence were overturned by the Delaware Supreme Court in 2015 after it found a lower court had erred by denying McCoy's challenge to strike a potential juror.
More:
McCoy had struck more than a dozen white potential jurors. The judge and prosecutor believe this was a race-based decision, which is impermissible, though McCoy said it was not.
The Delaware Supreme Court also said prosecutors made errors by improperly vouching for the credibility of a state witness and cited overall unprofessional conduct during the proceedings.
McCoy faced a retrial in January 2017, and the state offered him the opportunity to plead guilty to manslaughter and a weapons charge, which would have carried a sentence of five to 50 years in prison. McCoy refused, claiming he was innocent.
A judge found him not guilty and McCoy went free in 2017.
Shortly after moving to Hawaii, McCoy was able to fend off trafficking charges he faced in 2018.
But he was later convicted in 2021 of robbery in state court, according to Hawaii News Now — a news department shared by three television stations in Honolulu. After that conviction, federal prosecutors insisted McCoy ran his trafficking operation from behind bars.
He was indicted on those charges in 2024.
The evidence presented at the 12-day trial showed McCoy compelled victims to commit hundreds of commercial sex acts by making promises of a romantic relationship, a luxurious lifestyle and financial security to women and girls struggling with low self-esteem, a difficult upbringing or financial trouble, federal prosecutors said.
After luring the victims, prosecutors said McCoy turned violent and abusive if the victims did not provide him with enough money or violated his rules, which included having his victims call him "Daddy" or "Zeus."
When the women or girls did not do as told, prosecutors said McCoy would assault them, leaving them "battered and bruised."
In one case, prosecutors said McCoy repeatedly burned one of his victims with cigar butts when she did not provide him with enough money. In another case, prosecutors said McCoy smashed a victim's head against a car door before carrying her unconscious body through a hotel lobby and into an elevator.
In addition to being convicted on the sex trafficking charges, a jury also found McCoy guilty of two counts of obstructing a sex trafficking investigation, seven counts of interstate and foreign travel or transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises and one count of interstate travel for prostitution purposes.
Send tips or story ideas to Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware man found guilty of sex trafficking women, child in Hawaii
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