Eight workers at a northwest Dallas adult bookstore are now at the center of a sweeping federal sex-trafficking case, indicted Tuesday after what Homeland Security investigators describe as a multi-year probe, authorities said. Prosecutors say the Paris Adult Book Store was more than a place to buy adult novelties, accusing the business of using locked hallways and rentable rooms to facilitate commercial sex. Six of the defendants were taken into custody last Friday when agents executed raids and recovered 21 firearms, according to federal officials.
The indictment names eight people as defendants: Montre Lamont Mason (also known as "Trey" or "Unc"), Eileen Mason ("Mama" or "Ma"), Trelynn Love Mason ("NuNu"), Aaron Tyrone Betford, Larry Jones ("Big Guy"), Krishenda Doss, Reginald Rose and Antonio Dario Osorio-Avelar, according to CBS News Texas. All are charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, and prosecutors say some face additional counts that include sex trafficking through force, fraud or coercion, sex trafficking of a minor and conspiracy to launder money. U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould warned, "On that charge alone, the defendants are facing decades in prison," as he announced the indictments.
How prosecutors say the business worked
According to the indictment, the shop sold novelty items in the front while the back of the store was a different world. Locked corridors and rentable rooms were allegedly used to facilitate commercial sex, with customers paying to unlock doors, activate in-room video, and buy condoms and wipes, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Employees are accused of collecting tips and selling additional supplies, turning routine retail into what prosecutors describe as a tightly controlled operation.
Court papers also describe the sidewalk outside, known as "the blade" or "the track," where people working for the business allegedly solicited customers. Prosecutors say that activity helped transform the storefront into a hub for trafficking, with the store functioning as both a lure and a staging ground.
Operation Midnight at Paris
Homeland Security Investigations' North Texas Trafficking Task Force said it led "Operation Midnight at Paris," a probe that stretched roughly three years and involved federal, state and local partners, according to court filings. The investigation culminated in coordinated law-enforcement actions that, officials say, were designed to hit every level of the alleged operation at once.
Federal agents executed raids earlier this year on the bookstore and an associated home in Plano, and that work led to the arrests and the indictments announced Tuesday, according to CBS News Texas.
Tie to a deadly 2024 kidnapping
Officials said the investigation is linked to a deadly abduction from the Paris Book Store parking lot in August 2024. Court records and subsequent prosecutions identify the victim as Caleigha Zangari, and authorities say the person convicted in that killing was later sentenced to life in federal prison, an outcome prosecutors say underscored the stakes in trafficking investigations. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on the Zangari case and its connection to the broader probe.
What comes next
Federal prosecutors said the indictments mark the next phase of a coordinated federal-local push to dismantle trafficking networks in the Harry Hines corridor and to hold those who profit from exploitation accountable, per local reporting. The defendants will be processed in federal court, and an indictment is an accusation, not a conviction, so the people named are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
For background on enforcement in the area and earlier raids tied to the same investigation, The Dallas Morning News has reported on actions local and federal authorities took in the neighborhood earlier this year.
