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A Travis County jury has sentenced Raymond Paul Swan to 70 years behind bars. The day prior, the same jury found Swan guilty of Possession of a Controlled Substance -Methamphetamine. During the punishment hearing, the jury heard evidence involving the repeated sexual assault of two young girls, a lengthy record of stays inside of penitentiaries, and six prior felony convictions.
Swan’s initial arrest stemmed from an incident on January 6, 2017 in which Austin police responded to a crash. Witnesses sais they saw two young girls running away from the scene. Officer Brian O’Quinn matched the girls to a description given in an earlier Amber Alert. As it turns out, the girls, ages 14 and 16, had been missing from Montgomery County, Texas since December 2016.
The girls were reportedly first picked up in Conroe, Texas, and then taken to a hotel in Austin and told that they would begin working as prostitutes; they fled and were taken in at the same hotel by Raymond Paul Swan. Over the course of seven days, Swan gave drugs to and sexually assaulted the girls numerous times. Digital forensic testing of Swan’s phone showed that on the second day he learned that the girls were missing from Montgomery County and were 14 and 16 years old.
Special Agents with the Texas Department of Public Safety arrested Swan at the hotel and recovered methamphetamine and numerous items indicating a drug selling operation.
Assistant District Attorneys Jim Kingman and Joe Frederick prosecuted the case. Following the trial, Kingman stated, “Human trafficking is just below the surface, even in cities like Austin. Law enforcement and the jury did excellent work to make sure that this predator is removed from this community for a long time.”
