A 38-year-old pimp who dodged death row in Delaware was convicted in federal court Tuesday of sex trafficking three adult women and one minor girl.
Isaiah McCoy, aka “Zeus,” was convicted of four counts of sex trafficking, 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, following a 12-day trial, according to federal court
documents.
McCoy, who represented himself, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 18 at 9 a.m. before Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson. He faces between 15 years and life in prison.
“This successful conviction represents this Justice Department’s commitment to putting those who prey on the innocent behind bars,” said U.S. Attorney General
Pamela Bondi in a statement.
McCoy was first charged in an 18-count indictment Oct. 26, 2023, with sex trafficking of a minor and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; four counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; 11 counts of interstate and foreign travel or transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises; three counts of obstruction; and one count of transportation for purposes of prostitution.
His conviction “vindicates the rights” of multiple women and girls who McCoy “terrorized over several years” in Hawaii, said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, in a statement.
“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,” said Dhillon. “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 has been in state prison following a 2021 robbery conviction for punching a tourist in the face in 2019 and taking his $20,000 watch. He was jailed prior to his conviction in 2019 when he tried to escape the state before trial.
In a Jan. 20, 2024, motion to detain him without bail, Meghan Tokash and Kate Hill, trial attorneys with the Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote that McCoy recruited young women with “little life experience.”
“In this case through romance, charm, and promises of a luxurious lifestyle then inculcated obedience in his victims by inflicting physical and psychological trauma; he physically attacked and injured them, verbally abused them, threatened to beat them, and had them work in unsafe neighborhoods when they did not make enough money to satisfy him,” wrote Tokash and Hill.
McCoy used the internet to market the women he victimized and kept nearly all the money. He required his trafficking victims to call him “Daddy” or “Zeus.”
His victims had to share their smartphone location, and provide regular updates about how much they made doing commercial sex work, according to federal
prosecutors.
McCoy forced his victims to work when they were sick, hungry, or refused to have sex for money.
One woman who didn’t make enough cash for McCoy was burned repeatedly with cigar butts, prosecutors said. He threw victims to the ground, stomped on their head, stomach, or hands with his feet.
In one instance detailed by prosecutors, McCoy smashed a victim’s head against a car door before carrying her unconscious body through a hotel lobby and into an elevator.
McCoy was sentenced to death in Delaware in 2012 for a drug killing. Attorneys with The Innocence Project got the conviction overturned, and he was acquitted by a judge after a retrial.
After getting out of prison in Delaware in 2017 he came to Hawaii. In 2018, McCoy and his ex-wife Tawana
Roberts were indicted by a federal grand jury for sex-
trafficking a woman and a girl.
McCoy was also charged with trafficking six more women, producing child pornography and tampering with witnesses. A judge dismissed those charges after an assistant U.S. Attorney declared the federal investigation was unacceptable.
McCoy’s pimping was linked to a fatal shooting outside a Waikiki nightclub in September 2017 but he was not charged in the case.
