#Lovie Smith’s son, Mikal, busted on sex trafficking charges

Mikal Smith, the son of former NFL head coach and current Illinois coach Lovie Smith, was arrested on multiple charges related to sex trafficiking and prostitution, Arizona’s attorney general announced Thursday.

Smith and a co-defendant are accused of operating and maintaining an illegal prostitution enterprise between December 2018 and September 2019. They allegedly encouraged an adult female victim to engage in acts of prostitution over two months, with Smith allegedly using surveillance and retaliatory threats to control the victim, according to attorney general Mark Brnovich.

A state grand jury indicted Smith, who was previously an assistant coach for his dad with the Bears and Buccaneers, on charges of pandering, sex trafficking, receiving earnings of a prostitute, illegally conducting an enterprise, money laundering, conspiracy, and threatening or intimidating.

Smith played a year of college football at Arizona in 1996. He later spent four seasons on Lovie’s staff in Chicago from 2009 to 2012, was the Cowboys nickelbacks coach in 2013, then served as the safeties coach in Tampa Bay from 2014 to 2015.

Lovie Smith was fired by the Buccaneers in January 2016, but two months later was named the head coach at the University of Illinois.