Ex-Bears coach Lovie Smith’s son Mikal indicted on sex-trafficking charges

Mikal Smith, who coached as a Bears assistant under his famous father for three years, was indicted by an Arizona grand jury and was charged last week with sex trafficking, receiving earnings of a prostitute, money laundering in the first degree and more.

Lovie Smith has been the head football coach at the University of Illinois since 2016 and coached the Bears from 2004-12, including the team’s Super Bowl appearance in early 2007.

Mikal Smith was hired as the Bears’ defensive quality control coach in February 2010. After two years in that role, he spent 2012, his father’s last season with the Bears, as the nickelbacks coach.

According to the indictment, Smith and co-defendant Aprel Mae Rasmussen are accused of maintaining a prostitution enterprise from December 2018 and September 2019 in Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix and its suburbs.

The two are accused of encouraging a victim to engage in acts of prostitution. Smith is also accused of compelling Rasmussen to do the same — the charge of pandering is akin to pimping — and of threatening and intimidating Rasmussen and another victim.

In all, Smith is charged with nine counts: conspiracy, illegally conducting an enterprise, first-degree money laundering, pandering, receiving earnings of a prostitute, sex trafficking and threatening and intimidating. He faces arraignment on Sept. 10.

Smith played for the Arizona Wildcats for two seasons before earning his degree at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He worked with the Cowboys nickelbacks in 2013 and then became his father’s safeties coach for two years with the Buccaneers.