James Hatten, II, a 54-year-old resident of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced on November 7, 2025, in federal court for five counts of sex trafficking a minor. The sentencing was announced by United States Attorney Lesley A. Woods. Chief United States District Court Judge Robert R. Rossiter, Jr. imposed a sentence of 480 months’ imprisonment on each count, to be served concurrently. Hatten will not be eligible for parole under the federal system and will begin a 15-year term of supervised release after completing his prison sentence. He has also been ordered to pay $304,800.90 in restitution to his victims.
Hatten’s charges stem from incidents involving five different minors between May 1, 2022, and December 6, 2023, in the Omaha area. During sentencing proceedings, Hatten argued that he did not realize distributing drugs to minors in exchange for sex acts constituted sex trafficking because he was not advertising or selling the victims to others. Chief Judge Rossiter rejected this defense and stated: “reprehensible crime, reprehensible conduct” regarding Hatten’s actions and highlighted the significant age difference between Hatten and his victims when determining the sentence.
The investigation into this case was conducted by the Omaha Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations.
