Court of Appeals Eleventh District

After the Department of Homeland Security learned that Ernesto, Alberto and Israel Cortes Castro, were smuggling women from Mexico into the U.S. for forced prostitution, they were charged with conspiring to traffic women for prostitution by force or coercion in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594(c) and other substantive trafficking crimes. The Defendants plead guilty to the conspiring charge in exchange for the dismissal of the other charges. The factual proffer submitted with the plea agreements stated that the Defendants agreed to establish a sex-trafficking business in the U.S.

Defendants Flanders and Callum engaged in a scheme to lure aspiring models to South Florida, drug them with Benzodiazepines, film them engaging in sexual acts and distribute the film for profit. The two were convicted on conspiracy charges and multiple counts of inducing women to engage in sex trafficking through fraud and benefitting from that scheme. The two were sentenced to a total imprisonment term of life, including sixty month terms for the conspiracy charge and life terms for each of the sex-trafficking charges to run consecutively to each other.

Defendant James Mozie ran prostitution ring from his house, commonly known as the Boom Boom Room by his customers. Mozie recruited vulnerable teenage girls by posing as a modeling agent, luring them to the Boom Boom Room, and forcing them to have sex with him and his customers. In 2011, law enforcement agents raided the Boom Boom Room and Mozie was subsequently charged with one count of conspiring to commit child sex trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1594(c), eight counts of child trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C.