WASHINGTON – A Reno, Nevada man has been convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles on multiple charges related to the sex trafficking of minors, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Deborah Wong Yang of the Central District of California and FBI Assistant Director J. Stephen Tidwell announced today.
On June 26, 2006, a jury in the Central District of California found Juan Rico Doss guilty of two counts of sex trafficking of children, three counts of transporting minors into prostitution, one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of children and transporting minors into prostitution, and two counts of witness tampering. Doss was found not guilty on one count of witness tampering.
These charges arose from information that Doss prostituted two minor victims in both California and Reno, Nevada, during the first two weeks of May 2005. Doss, along with his wife Jacquay Quinn Ford, conspired to transport a 14-year-old female and a 16-year-old female to work for Doss as prostitutes. Doss and his wife transported these victims to various locations in California including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and Oakland for the purpose of prostitution. Doss and Ford also transported these minors from Reno to Los Angeles for the purpose of prostitution.
The trial proof demonstrated that during this time the money from the commercial sexual exploitation of these minors was provided to Doss and that the minor victims worked for the defendant. The trial proof further indicated that Doss knowingly recruited, enticed, harbored, and transported the 16-year-old victim knowing that force, fraud and coercion would be used to cause this victim to engage in a commercial sex act.
Doss was convicted in the new trial, after a jury in a trial in April 2006 was unable to reach a verdict. Doss, who has a prior state conviction for two counts of pandering of a child stemming from his transportation of other minors for the purpose of prostitution, faces a statutory term of mandatory life in prison for his conviction on the transporting of minors for the purpose of prostitution charge, and up to life in prison for sex trafficking of children by force. Each count also carries a term of supervised release following imprisonment of up to life and a potential fine of up to $250,000. In addition, the jury found that Doss should forfeit one of the vehicles used to transport the minor victims for the purposes of prostitution.
The investigation was part of the Innocence Lost Initiative – a national FBI initiative conducted in partnership with the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which focuses on child victims of interstate sex trafficking in the United States. To date, the Innocence Lost Initiative has resulted in at least 166 open investigations, 533 arrests, 101 indictments and 75 convictions.
This case was investigated by Special Agent Adrienne Mitchell of the FBI and was referred to the FBI by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Vice Unit. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tammy Spertus of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and Trial Attorney Jennifer Toritto Leonardo of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
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