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Release No. 07-088
July 3, 2007
NEVADA MAN SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON ON CHARGES RELATED TO THE SEX TRAFFICKING OF MINORS
A Nevada man has been sentenced to life without parole in federal prison for transporting two minors across state lines to work as prostitutes after he previously had been convicted of a child exploitation crime, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney George S. Cardona of the Central District of California announced today.
Juan Rico Doss, 38, of Reno, Nevada, received the mandatory sentence of life in prison yesterday from U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson in Riverside.
On June 26, 2006, a federal jury determined that Doss was 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.
The evidence at trial showed that during the first two weeks of May 2005, Doss conspired with his wife, Jacquay Quinn Ford, to transport two girls across state lines to work as prostitutes. Doss and Ford transported the victims – one 14 and one 16 – from Nevada to work as prostitutes in Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and Oakland. Doss recruited and transported the 16-year-old victim by the use of force.
At an earlier trial of Doss in April 2006, a mistrial was declared after the 14-year-old victim refused to testify against Doss. Investigators determined that Doss had coerced the victim and had convinced her to not testify, which led to the witness tampering counts in the second trial.
“Juan Rico Doss stole the freedom of his young female victims when he recruited them and transported them across state lines for prostitution, sometimes through the use of force. Now he will spend the rest of his life in prison,” said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. “The life sentence in this case is the result of the cooperative effort of federal prosecutors, the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department, and is part of our ongoing effort to prevent and prosecute the sexual exploitation of child victims.”
Prior to the first trial, Ford pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy for her role in this offense and cooperated with the government. Ford testified against her husband at the second trial and was sentenced in April 2006 to 15 months in prison.
Doss was sentenced to a mandatory statutory term of life in prison pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 3559(e), which calls for mandatory life imprisonment for repeated sex offenses against children. On Nov. 1, 2006, Judge Larson found that Doss’s previous conviction in the State of Nevada on charges of pandering of minors for the purpose of prostitution qualified as a prior sex offense under this statute. Ford is one of the first in the nation to receive the mandatory life sentence pursuant to Section 3559(e).
The case against Doss and Ford was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which received the case from the Los Angeles Police Department. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice. This case is part of the Innocence Lost Initiative, a cooperative effort between the FBI, the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to prevent and prosecute child prostitution.
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Release No. 07-088
Return to the 2007 Press Release Index