Federal prosecutors have charged a Houston man with sexually exploiting a teenage girl, but newly filed court records suggest the case reaches far beyond trafficking. The Bob Casey United States Courthouse for the Southern District of Texas is photographed in 2023 in Houston. Yi-Chin Lee/Staff Photographer

Federal prosecutors last week announced charges against a Houston man who they accuse of forcing a teen girl into prostitution, holding her against her will and torturing her. The sexual exploitation charges include allegations that the girl was burned with a lighter and forced to have sex with a man on camera.

Prosecutors allege Jaelyn  Spider  Churchwell, 22, is a pimp who also planned murders of three other people, including the man featured in the sex tape now at the center of the federal indictment, according to court records.


Churchwell has been in Harris County jail since 2024 on state charges related to the abuse of the teenager. He has denied the allegations and is awaiting trial. Churchwell was order to stay in custody until his trial.

As of Wednesday, he had not entered a plea related to the federal charges. An attorney for Churchwell in the federal case declined to comment.

Multiple possible trafficking victims

A criminal complaint filed at the end of June in the Southern District of Texas charged Churchwell with sexual exploitation of children. Federal prosecutors filed the complaint more than two years after he was arrested and charged in Harris County with unlawful restraint and aggravated assault. He was later charged with sex trafficking, according to court records.

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Churchwell was transferred to federal custody Friday.


Both the state and federal cases are related to accusations that Churchwell and two other men held the 16-year-old girl against her will and forced her into sex work from November 2023 to January 2024, according

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