United States v. Anthony

942 F.3d 955
Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit·Decided October 31, 2019·No. 18-6047·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

FILED

United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS October 31, 2019 Elisabeth A. Shumaker

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. No. 18-6047 CURTIS A. ANTHONY, Defendant - Appellant, --------------------

THE HUMAN TRAFFICKING INSTITUTE,

Amicus Curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 5:15-CR-00126-C-5)

Dean Sanderford, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant- Appellant.

K. McKenzie Anderson, Assistant United States Attorney, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before MATHESON, EBEL, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Curtis A. Anthony of child-sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit child-sex trafficking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591(a)(1), (b)(2), (c) and 1594(c). The district court sentenced Anthony to the statutory mandatory-minimum 10 years’ imprisonment and ordered that he pay restitution to the two child victims— R.W. and M.M—in the amount of $327,013.50 and $308,233.50, respectively. On appeal, Anthony contends that these amounts exceed actual losses resulting from his two offenses of conviction. He raises two issues with the restitution order: (i) that it impermissibly compensates harms that R.W. suffered from an earlier, unrelated sex- trafficking criminal enterprise run by a different wrongdoer; and (ii) that, for his conspiracy count, it compensates R.W.’s and M.M.’s harms beyond a smaller conspiracy proved at trial (a subset of the broad, charged conspiracy). We agree with Anthony on both issues, but we disagree that he has established plain error on the second issue. Thus, exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a), we affirm the district court’s restitution order as covering the broad, charged conspiracy, but we vacate the order and remand for a recalculation of losses to ensure that no restitution is awarded for harms that R.W. suffered during the earlier sex-trafficking offense.

BACKGROUND

In May and June 2014, when R.W. was 14 years old, a pimp named William Johnson prostituted her in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma area. William pleaded guilty in 2015 to a federal charge of sex trafficking a minor, was later sentenced to 30 years in prison, and was ordered to pay R.W. $900,000 in restitution. See Amended Judgment,

United States v. Johnson, No. CR 14-0341-F (W.D. Okla. Jan. 13, 2016), ECF No. 83. In a victim-impact statement prepared for that case, R.W. reported that William had taken her virginity, had “beat the mess out of” her, and had “brainwashed” her “into practically being a slave.” ROA vol. 2 at 70. R.W. described the psychological effects of this abuse, including her not “know[ing] how to act around people [her] age” and feeling “no worth whatsoever.” Id. at 71. R.W. also reported numerous symptoms of psychological trauma such as nightmares, fear for her safety, fear of being alone, fear of adults and strangers, anxiety, depression, anger, crying spells, and feelings of helplessness.

On October 8, 2014, after law-enforcement officers rescued R.W., and she had returned home, she received Facebook messages from another pimp, Maurice M. Johnson (no relation to William) and one of his adult prostitutes, Chelsee A. Griffin, offering to pick her up to “make money.” Id. vol. 3 at 345. After midnight on October 9, Maurice picked up R.W., photographed her, and had a longtime associate, Tonya Gay Gum, post the photos on websites advertising escort services. For a share of the escort revenue, Gum operated a “call center” with over twenty publicly listed phone numbers—all of which forwarded to two personal cell phones—through which she fielded requests for sexual services and arranged for escorts to meet with customers. Id. at 38–39. After using these services to traffic R.W. for about two weeks, Maurice had her recruit her friend, 15-year- old M.M., to work as a prostitute. M.M. did so for about a week before law enforcement

halted the operation. In their time with Maurice, R.W. and M.M. together brought in about $40,000 from prostitution.

On the evening of October 24, 2014, Anthony called one of Gum’s escort lines.

Anthony stated only that he was “looking for company” at his office. See id. at 254–55. Gum sent R.W. to the office, but when she arrived, Anthony couldn’t locate his wallet, so he and R.W. drove to an ATM to withdraw cash for the transaction. But Anthony was unable to make a withdrawal without his wallet, so R.W. left with Maurice, who had followed them to the ATM along with M.M., Griffin, and two others. Minutes later, while the group was heading back, Anthony called again and asked for R.W. to return because he had located his wallet and now had cash. Maurice turned around and drove R.W. back to Anthony’s office, this time sending M.M. in with her. Anthony paid the girls to strip naked, touched their bodies, and stated that he wanted to finish “the date with M.M.” Id. at 443. So R.W. gave M.M. a condom and waited outside while M.M. and Anthony had sex for money.

On October 27, 2014, law-enforcement officers, while running an undercover-

sting operation, located and rescued R.W. and M.M. Maurice had kept the girls in a hotel room where he forced them into commercial sex transactions. He and Gum split the proceeds. Maurice used psychological manipulation, threats of force, and physical abuse to control the girls. As R.W. later testified, Maurice had treated her “[l]ike a slave,

basically.” Id. at 446. Griffin also testified that Maurice was a violent and dangerous man.

On June 16, 2015, a federal grand jury sitting in the Western District of Oklahoma indicted Anthony on child-sex-trafficking charges. On January 6, 2016, the grand jury returned a superseding indictment charging Anthony with: (i) child-sex trafficking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1), (b)(2), and (c); and (ii) conspiracy to commit child- sex trafficking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594(c). 1 The superseding indictment named

1 To violate § 1591, the defendant must have known or recklessly disregarded that the victims were minors, absent a “reasonable opportunity to observe” them. See 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1) & (c). In the substantive trafficking count, the superseding indictment charges that Anthony had a reasonable opportunity to observe R.W. and M.M., thus obviating the need to establish his knowing or reckless disregard of their minority status. But we note that Anthony had no opportunity to observe the victims when he called the escort service and allegedly conspired to violate § 1591. Nor, for that matter, did Anthony request that Gum send a minor escort. As a result, under §§ 1591(a)(1), (b)(2), (c) and 1594(c), it appears that the government needed to prove that Anthony knew or recklessly disregarded that the victims were minors when he entered the conspiracy.

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