BOSTON – A Boston man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with sex trafficking a 16-year-old girl.
Jonathan White, 29, of Dorchester, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani to 10 years in prison and five years of supervised release. In December 2014, White pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to recruiting and transporting a minor to engage in prostitution. The matter was transferred to the District of Massachusetts for sentencing.
In June 2012, a 16 year-old girl from Georgia began chatting, over Tagged.com, a social networking site, with an individual who was working for White as a prostitute and recruited others to prostitute for White. White paid for the victim’s bus ticket from Atlanta to Orlando, Fla. Once there, the victim engaged in commercial sex acts with clients solicited through Backpage.com ads, with White ultimately receiving the money that customers paid. White and the prostitute then drove the victim from Florida to Brooklyn, where she engaged in more commercial sex acts solicited over the Internet. A few weeks later, the victim became involved with another pimp. After that pimp was arrested, law enforcement discovered White’s role in the victim’s exploitation and he was charged.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Boston, made the announcement today. The case was prosecuted in Boston by Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Kosto of Ortiz’s Civil Rights Enforcement Team, and in Brooklyn by Assistant U.S. Attorney Soumya Dayanana.