Orange County District Attorney Press Release
For Immediate Release: June 27, 2014
Case # 13CF2470
*Co-defendant in this case was convicted and awaits sentencing
SANTA ANA – A man was sentenced today to six years and four months in state prison for sex trafficking two minor girls, ages 16 and 17 years old. Michael Wayne Greer, 25, Sacramento, pleaded guilty June 3, 2014, to one felony count each of human trafficking of a minor and pandering a minor over 16 years old by procuring.
Co-defendant Jaylin Juwan Marshall, 21, Sacramento, pleaded guilty June 3, 2014, to one felony count each of human trafficking of a minor and pandering a minor over 16 years old by procuring. 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 at his sentencing July 18, 2014, at 8:30 a.m. in Department C-55, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana. Both defendants must also register as lifetime sex offenders.
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.
Members of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF) and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office work proactively to protect women and minors from falling victim to commercial sexual exploitation. This case was investigated by SAPD and received assistance from OCHTTF.
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.
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.
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Tony Rackauckas, District Attorney
401 Civic Center Drive West
Santa Ana, CA 92701
Contacts:
Susan Kang Schroeder
Chief of Staff
Office: 714-347-8408
Cell: 714-292-2718
Farrah Emami
Spokesperson
Office: 714-347-8405
Cell: 714-323-4486
