Case # 14NF2647
Date: January 12, 2015
FEMALE PIMP SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS IN STATE PRISON FOR PANDERING 19-YEAR-OLD VICTIM WITH MENTAL IMPAIRMENT AFTER BEFRIENDING HER ON FACEBOOK
*Co-defendant in this case was convicted of human trafficking and pimping the same victim
SANTA ANA – A woman was sentenced to three years in state prison on Friday, Jan. 9, 2015 for pandering a 19-year-old woman with a mental impairment after the she had befriended the victim on Facebook. Jasmine De Johnette Marshall Parker, 21, Ontario, pleaded guilty to one felony count of pandering and was sentenced to three years in state prison and ordered to pay restitution to the victim. The co-defendant in this case, Frederick Victoralan Phillips, 26, Rialto, pleaded guilty to one felony count each of human trafficking and pimping and was sentenced to five years in state prison and ordered to pay restitution on Oct. 28, 2014.
Circumstances of the Case
With the rise in popularity of social media and ease of meeting people on the Internet, many pimps and human traffickers utilize a variety of social media to locate potential victims. The victims are often required to turn over all payment they receive for sex acts from sex purchasers to their pimp.
Parker met Jane Doe, who has a mental impairment, on Facebook and engaged in an online friendship with her for approximately one year.
Parker met Jane Doe in person in May 2014 when the victim was 19 years old and introduced the victim to Phillips. Phillips drove Jane Doe to Anaheim and induced the victim to engage in acts of prostitution for approximately one month by depriving her liberty through fraud, coercion and false promises.
The victim has a mental impairment, making her susceptible to false promises. The defendants took advantage of Jane Doe’s impairment by promising to help her rent an apartment so she could live on her own, which was particularly important to the victim because she had never before been able to live on her own due to her impairment.
Phillips took the money Jane Doe was paid for through performing sex acts and used it for personal gain, including buying a car.
The defendants arranged a sexual encounter between the victim and a sex purchaser, who was actually an undercover officer with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF). The defendants were arrested near the scene.
Members of OCHTTF and the Orange County District Attorney’s (OCDA) Office work proactively to protect women and minors from falling victim to commercial sexual exploitation. This case was investigated by OCHTTF, a partnership between the Anaheim Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Huntington Beach Police Department, OCDA, Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and community and non-profit partners.
Deputy District Attorney Daniel Varon of the HEAT Unit is prosecuting this case.
Proposition 35 and HEAT
In November 2012, California’s anti-human trafficking Proposition 35 (Prop 35) was enacted in California with 81 percent of the vote, and over 82 percent of the vote in Orange County, to increase the penalty for human trafficking, particularly in cases involving the trafficking of a minor by force.
A component of the OCHTTF is the OCDA’s Human Exploitation And Trafficking (HEAT) Unit, which targets perpetrators who sexually exploit and traffic women and underage girls for financial gain, including pimps, panderers, and human traffickers. The HEAT Unit uses a tactical plan called PERP: Prosecution, to bring justice for victims of human trafficking and hold perpetrators responsible using Prop 35; Education, to provide law enforcement training to properly handle human trafficking and pandering cases; Resources from public-private partnerships to raise public awareness about human trafficking and provide assistance to the victims; and Publicity, to inform the public and send a message to human traffickers that this crime cannot be perpetrated without suffering severe consequences.
Under the law, human trafficking is described as depriving or violating the personal liberty of another person with the intent to effect a violation of pimping or pandering. Pimping is described as knowingly deriving financial support in whole or in part from the proceeds of prostitution. Pandering is the act of persuading or procuring an individual to become a prostitute, or procuring and/or arranging for a person work in a house of prostitution.
Penal Code Section 236.1 defines:
(1) “Coercion” includes any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process; debt bondage; or providing and facilitating the possession of any controlled substance to a person with the intent to impair the person’s judgment.
(2) “Commercial sex act” means sexual conduct on account of which anything of value is given or received by any person.
(3) “Deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another” includes substantial and sustained restriction of another’s liberty accomplished through force, fear, fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, under circumstances where the person receiving or apprehending the threat reasonably believes that it is likely that the person making the threat would carry it out.
(4) “Duress” includes a direct or implied threat of force, violence, danger, hardship, or retribution sufficient to cause a reasonable person to acquiesce in or perform an act which he or she would otherwise not have submitted to or performed; a direct or implied threat to destroy, conceal, remove, confiscate, or possess any actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim; or knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating, or possessing any actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim.
(5) “Forced labor or services” means labor or services that are performed or provided by a person and are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, duress, or coercion, or equivalent conduct that would reasonably overbear the will of the person.
(6) “Great bodily injury” means a significant or substantial physical injury.
(7) “Minor” means a person less than 18 years of age.
(8) “Serious harm” includes any harm, whether physical or nonphysical, including psychological, financial, or reputational harm, that is sufficiently serious, under all the surrounding circumstances, to compel a reasonable person of the same background and in the same circumstances to perform or to continue performing labor, services, or commercial sexual acts in order to avoid incurring that harm.
(i) The total circumstances, including the age of the victim, the relationship between the victim and the trafficker or agents of the trafficker, and any handicap or disability of the victim, shall be factors to consider in determining the presence of “deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another,” “duress,” and “coercion” as described in this section.