BENTONVILLE (AR)
KNWA [Rogers AR]
November 5, 2025
By Kyler Swaim
A Missouri man has been convicted of trafficking minors in Benton County and sentenced to more than three decades in prison, according to authorities.
A jury found Daniel Smathers, 47, of Joplin, Mo., guilty of one count of trafficking of persons on Wednesday, Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Robinson confirmed to KNWA/FOX24. Robinson said sentencing deliberations began shortly after Smathers’ conviction.
Smathers was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Smathers was accused of knowingly enticing, soliciting or obtaining a minor for commercial sexual activity.
He was arrested in 2022 after an investigation revealed a teenage girl meeting and having sexual contact with an older man at a hotel in Bentonville, a probable cause affidavit said.
The affidavit said Smathers was a tutor at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M in Miami and that “he either is or was a Reverend for a Baptist church in Diamond, Missouri.”
A spokesperson with NEO gave Nexstar’s KSNF in 2022 the following statement:
“Daniel Smathers’ full-time employment as academic support tutor ended at NEO in August 2021 and his contract employment as a grant-funded summer adjunct instructor ended in June 2022.”
A pastor at Diamond First Baptist Church confirmed that Smathers was no longer on staff and hadn’t been since 2017.
Smathers was interviewed by the FBI in June 2020 but declined to speak without legal representation, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit said the victim and two other minors, a male and a female, met Smathers at a hotel and revealed their ages.
The male told authorities that he left the other girls with Smathers in the motel room when he went to wait in the lobby. A half hour later, the girls left Smathers’ motel room, and the male received $250 in his CashApp account.
Officers said after getting information from the motel, they were able to obtain photo identification from the girls.
Additionally, officers say they were able to find the CashApp account belonging to Smathers shows he paid the juvenile girl $200 on May 7 and $300 on May 8, 2022, according to the affidavit.
Court documents say the initial report was made by the mother of one of the victims after she found social media posts about her daughter seeking a “sugar daddy.”