| For Immediate Release Case # 13CF2470 June 3, 2014 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Chief of Staff Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718Farrah Emami Spokesperson Office: 714-347-8405 Cell: 714-323-4486 |
TWO MEN CONVICTED OF SEX TRAFFICKING TWO FEMALE MINORS, AGES 16 AND 17
SANTA ANA – Two men were convicted today of sex trafficking two minor girls, ages 16 and 17 years old. Michael Wayne Greer, 25, and Jaylin Juwan Marshall, 21, both of Sacramento, pleaded guilty today to one felony count each of human trafficking of a minor, pandering a minor over 16 years old by procuring, and pimping a minor. Marshall has a prior strike conviction for a 2011 residential burglary in Sacramento County. Marshall is expected to be sentenced to 10 years in state prison and Greer is expected to be sentenced to six years and four months in state prison at their sentencing June 13, 2014, at 9:00 a.m. in Department C-55, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana. The defendants are also expected be sentenced to lifetime sex offender registration.
Circumstances of the Case
Greer and Marshall are pimps who exploit women and/or children for financial gain. Pimps often establish rigid rules that their victims are expected to follow including requiring victims to turn over all payment they receive for sex acts from sex purchasers to their pimp.
Months before July 2013, Greer befriended 17-year-old Jane Doe #1.
On July 29, 2013, Greer and Marshall met Jane Doe #1 and 16-year-old Jane Doe #2. They convinced the victims to go away with them with the intent to traffic them and sexually exploit the girls for a commercial purpose. Marshall posted sexual advertisements featuring Jane Doe #1 on Internet websites known for prostitution. The two defendants trafficked the teen victims to San Jose and then to Orange County. During this time, Marshall instructed Jane Doe #1 to perform sexual acts in exchange for money from sex purchasers.
On July 31, 2013, Greer and Marshall put both girls in a Santa Ana hotel room to engage in commercial sex. The defendants arranged two encounters for the victims with sex purchasers. One of the “sex purchasers” was an undercover officer from the Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD). The defendants were arrested that day.
This case was investigated by SAPD. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Anaheim Police Department assisted in the investigation. Deputy District Attorney Bradley Schoenleben 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.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Human Exploitation And Trafficking (HEAT) Unit 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.