Honduran pimp who ran West Knoxville operation headed to prison
knoxnews.com
By Jamie Satterfield
Posted September 24, 2011 at 4 a.m.

A Honduran national who ran a sex delivery service out of a house on Papermill Drive is headed to federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips on Friday sentenced Selvin Salvador Perdomo to two years in prison for violation of the federal Mann Act, which makes it a crime to transport people across state lines or U.S. borders for the purpose of prostitution.

The FBI, which headed up the probe of Perdomo, has said in an affidavit Perdomo may have pimped as many as 400 women, almost exclusively female illegal immigrants of Hispanic descent, to a largely Hispanic clientele. However, a plea deal struck between Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Kirby and defense attorney Tracy Jackson Smith limited the number of victims to six, a move that lowered the penalty range for the 38-year-old Perdomo. He agreed in the plea deal to be immediately deported after serving his prison term.

Court records show that for four years Perdomo ferried women weekly from the Atlanta area to Knoxville. He took appointments through his cellphone and then drove the women to clients' homes. The clients were charged $30 for 15-minute sexual encounters. Perdomo took half.

His base of operation was a rental house on Papermill Drive where he lived with a woman and her three children. His arrest in July 2010 came after a yearlong probe by an FBI task force that included officers with the Knoxville Police Department, Knox County Sheriff's Office, Clinton Police Department and Blount County Sheriff's Office.

To nab Perdomo, two officers posed as customers and ordered up a prostitute for an encounter at an apartment on Cedar Bluff Road, court records show. Perdomo sat on a living room couch while the woman went into the bedroom with the two undercover officers. As she began to disrobe, the officers revealed their true identities, and a surveillance team moved in to arrest Perdomo, his plea agreement states.

Attorney Smith said Perdomo came to the U.S. in 1998 after a hurricane caused devastating damage in Honduras and was granted temporary protected status. He failed to re-register for the program when it was extended last year, Smith wrote.

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