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15-387 

United States of America v. Gilliam 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 

August Term 2016 

Heard: September 29, 2016 Decided: December 1, 2016 

Docket Nos. 15-387 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

JABAR GILLIAM, AKA Jamal Gilliam, AKA Jabal 

Gilliam, AKA JB, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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Before: NEWMAN, WINTER, and CABRANES, Circuit Judges. 

 Appeal from the January 28, 2015, judgment of the 

District Court for the Southern District of New York 

(Thomas P. Griesa, District Judge), convicting Jabar 

Gilliam after a jury trial of offenses concerning sex 

trafficking of a minor and sentencing him to 240 months of 

imprisonment. Gilliam contends primarily that the District 

Court erred in denying his motion to suppress his cell 
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phone’s location information, which had been supplied, at 

the Government’s request, by a telecommunications company. 

 Affirmed. 

Robert A. Culp, Law Office of Robert 

A. Culp, Garrison, NY, for 

Appellant.

Kristy J. Greenberg, Asst. U.S. 

Atty., New York, NY (Preet 

Bharara, U.S. Atty., Adam S. 

Hickey, Asst. U.S. Atty., New 

York, NY, on the brief), for 

Appellee. 

JON O. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge: 

 The principal issue on this appeal from a conviction 

for sex trafficking involving a minor is whether 

information from a global positioning system (“GPS”) can be 

obtained and used without a warrant to locate a suspect. 

This issue arises on an appeal by Jabar Gilliam from the 

January 28, 2015, judgment of the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of New York (Thomas P. 

Griesa, District Judge). Gilliam was convicted of sex 

trafficking offenses after a jury trial and sentenced to 

imprisonment for 240 months. 
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 We conclude that exigent circumstances justified 

obtaining and using GPS location information without a 

warrant and therefore affirm. 

Background 

Offense conduct. The Defendant’s offenses concern sex 

trafficking of a minor known as Jasmin. She recounted at 

trial the facts concerning Gilliam’s offenses. Gilliam met 

Jasmin in Maryland in late October or early November 2011. 

She was sixteen at the time, but told Gilliam that she was 

seventeen. Gilliam asked Jasmin to work for him as a 

prostitute after she told him she was working for another 

pimp. Gilliam told Jasmin that he was going to take her to 

New York, where she could work for him. 

Jasmin worked for Gilliam as a prostitute in Maryland 

in November 2011. On two occasions he punched her. On one 

occasion he had sex with her against her will in a hotel 

room and on November 30, Gilliam brought Jasmin to New York 

City after threatening to require her fifteen-year-old 

sister to work as a prostitute for him if Jasmin refused to 

go. Gilliam purchased Jasmin’s bus ticket for the trip, and 

on the ride to New York City, Gilliam told Jasmin to sit 
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near the window and then put his legs up beside her so that 

Jasmin could not get out of her seat. Gilliam brought 

Jasmin to his mother’s apartment in the Bronx, where he had 

sex with her against her will. Jasmin worked as a 

prostitute for Gilliam in the Bronx, giving him all the 

money that she earned. 

Locating and arresting Gilliam. On November 30, 

Jasmin’s foster mother reported to the Sheriff’s Office in 

Frederick County, Maryland, that Jasmin was missing from 

home. The foster mother told authorities that Jasmin had 

mentioned a “boyfriend,” known to her as “Jabar,” who was 

later identified as Gilliam. On December 2, the case was 

referred to the Maryland State Police, which assigned 

Corporal Chris Heid to investigate. Corporal Heid spoke 

with Jasmin’s social worker, who expressed concern that 

Jasmin was being forced into prostitution by Jabar Gilliam. 

The social worker based her concern on conversations with 

Jasmin’s biological mother. Heid then spoke with Jasmin’s 

biological mother, who confirmed this information. She told 

Heid that Gilliam had communicated with her directly and 

told her that he was planning to take Jasmin to New York to 

work there as a prostitute. 
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On that same day, based on this information, Heid 

contacted Sprint Corporation (“Sprint”), a 

telecommunications company. He told Sprint that he was 

“investigating a missing child who is . . . being 

prostituted,” and requested GPS location information for 

Gilliam’s cell phone. Heid said that he was making the 

request because of “an exigent situation involving . . . 

immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury to a[] 

person.” Sprint complied with Heid’s request and began 

providing real-time GPS location information to the 

Maryland State Police, which passed the information on to 

the FBI and the New York City Police Department (“NYPD)”. 

Also on December 2, Jasmin placed a phone call to her 

biological mother from the Bronx apartment of Gilliam’s 

mother. NYPD officers went to that apartment and questioned 

Gilliam’s mother. Location information provided by Sprint 

indicated that Gilliam’s cell phone was a few blocks away. 

Canvassing the neighborhood, two NYPD officers saw Gilliam 

and Jasmin on the street and followed them to the third 

floor of an apartment building. When an officer confronted 

Gilliam, he attempted to flee. A scuffle ensued, after 

which Gilliam was arrested.
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Charges, trial, and conviction. A grand jury charged 

Gilliam in Count One with sex trafficking of a minor by 

force, fraud, or coercion in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 

1591(a), (b)(1), and (b)(2), and in Count Two with 

transporting a minor in interstate commerce for purposes of 

prostitution in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a). Gilliam 

was convicted on both counts after a jury trial and 

sentenced to imprisonment for 240 months. 

Discussion 

 I. Use of GPS Location Information 

 The District Court denied Gilliam’s motion challenging 

the use of GPS location information to determine where 

Gilliam was, information that led to his arrest. The Court 

ruled that the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 

2702(c)(4), authorized, and exigent circumstances 

permitted, Corporal Heid to obtain location information 

from Sprint without a warrant. 

 Section 2702(c)(4) provides: 

A provider . . . may divulge a record or other 

information pertaining to a subscriber . . . (not 

including the contents of communications covered 

by [other subsections]) – 

 . . . 

 (4) to a governmental entity, if the provider, 

in good faith, believes that an emergency 

involving danger of death or serious physical 
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injury to any person requires disclosure without 

delay of information relating to the emergency. 

18 U.S.C. § 2702(c)(4) (emphasis added). 

 The initial statutory issue presented by Sprint’s 

disclosure of GPS location information is whether it 

was “other information” within the meaning of 

subsection 2702(c)(4). Congress intended the phrase 

“other information” to cover “information about the 

customer’s use of the service.” S. Rep. No. 99-541, at 

38 (1986). Several district courts have interpreted the 

phrase to include the location of a customer’s cell 

phone. See United States v. Graham, 846 F. Supp. 2d 

384, 396 (D. Md. 2012) (subsequent history omitted); In 

re Application of the United States for an Order 

Authorizing the Release of Historical Cell-Site Info., 

809 F. Supp. 2d 113, 125 (E.D.N.Y. 2011); In re 

Application of the United States for Prospective Cell 

Site Location Info. on a Certain Cellular Telephone, 

460 F. Supp. 2d 448, 460-61 (S.D.N.Y. 2006). We agree 
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that “other information” includes the location of a 

subscriber’s cell phone.1

 The second statutory question is whether the 

circumstances presented to Sprint showed “an emergency 

involving danger of . . . serious physical injury to 

any person.” We think it obvious that “involving,” 18 

U.S.C. § 2702(c)(4), includes a realistic threat of 

such injury, not just a completed injury. That 

statutory question also arises in connection with the 

constitutional issue presented by Sprint’s disclosure 

at the request of a law enforcement officer and the use 

of that information to locate and arrest Gilliam 

without a warrant. That issue is whether such a 

disclosure and arrest without a warrant violated the 

Fourth Amendment.2

																																																																		

1 The cited cases involve interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 

2703, a statute different from, but closely related to, section 

2702. Section 2703 concerns mandatory disclosures pursuant to a 

warrant. Subsection 2703(c) requires disclosure of “a record or 

other information pertaining to a subscriber . . . (not 

including the contents of communications) . . . .,” language 

identical to the language of subsection 2702(c). 

2 “[T]he Government assumes for purposes of this appeal 

that cell phone users have a reasonable expectation of 

privacy in [location] information under the Fourth 

Amendment.” Br. for Appellee 14 n.3 at 15. We make the same 

assumption.
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 Both the second statutory issue and the Fourth 

Amendment issue turn on whether the circumstances known 

to law enforcement and presented to Sprint were within 

the category of “exigent circumstances” that permit 

warrantless searches. See Riley v. California, 134 S. 

Ct. 2473, 2487 (2014). “The core question is whether 

the facts . . . would lead a reasonable, experienced 

officer, to believe that there was an urgent need to . 

. . take action.” United States v. Klump, 536 F.3d 113, 

117–18 (2d Cir. 2008) (internal citations and quotation 

marks omitted). “A district court's determination as to 

whether exigent circumstances existed is fact-specific, 

and will not be reversed unless clearly erroneous.” 

United States v. MacDonald, 916 F.2d 766, 769 (2d Cir. 

1990) (in banc) (citations omitted). 

We agree with the District Court that exigent 

circumstances justified GPS tracking of Gilliam’s cell 

phone. The evidence available to law enforcement at the 

time of the search for Gilliam’s location was compelling. 

Based on Heid’s discussions with Jasmin’s foster mother, 

social worker, and biological mother, law enforcement 

officers had a substantial basis to believe that Gilliam 
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was bringing Jasmin to New York City to require her to work 

there as a prostitute. That type of sexual exploitation of 

a minor has often been found to pose a significant risk of 

serious bodily injury. See, e.g., United States v. Daye, 

571 F.3d 225, 234 (2d Cir. 2009), abrogated on other 

grounds by Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 

(2015); United States v. Curtis, 481 F.3d 836, 838-39 (D.C. 

Cir. 2007). As the Ninth Circuit has observed, prostitution 

of a child involves “the risk of assault or physical abuse 

by the pimp’s customers or by the pimp himself” and “a 

serious potential risk of contracting a sexually 

transmitted disease.” United States v. Carter, 266 F.3d 

1089, 1091 (9th Cir. 2001) (internal citations and 

quotation marks omitted). 

Several courts have found that exigent circumstances 

justified warrantless entry into premises to avoid risk of 

injury to a minor held there. See, e.g., Hunsberger v. 

Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 555 (4th Cir. 2009); United States v. 

Kenfield, 270 F. App’x 695, 696-97 (9th Cir. 2008); United 

States v. Thomas, No. 3:14-CR-00031 (RNC), 2015 WL 164075, 

*4-5 (D. Conn. Jan. 13, 2015); United States v. Williams, 

No. 12-CR-6152G(MWP), 2015 WL 429087, at *12-13 (W.D.N.Y. 
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Feb. 2, 2015), report and recommendation adopted, No. 12-

CR-6152(FPG), 2015 WL 3454430 (W.D.N.Y. May 29, 2015). 

Locating on the streets a victim of sexual exploitation 

might seem to present a less immediate need for police 

action than entering premises where such a victim is being 

held, but it is nonetheless sufficient to constitute 

exigent circumstances. 

Gilliam contends that the time required to obtain a 

warrant would not have significantly added to the risk of 

injury to Jasmin. That argument calls to mind the plight of 

social workers who have to decide whether to face a lawsuit 

for quickly removing a child from the home of an abusive 

parent or for failing to act in time to prevent the child’s 

injury. “If they err in interrupting parental custody, they 

may be accused of infringing the parents’ constitutional 

rights. If they err in not removing the child, they risk 

injury to the child and may be accused of infringing the 

child’s rights.” Van Emrik v. Chemung County Dep’t of 

Social Services, 911 F.2d 863, 866 (2d Cir. 1990). Faced 

with exigent circumstances based on credible information 

that Gilliam was engaged in prostituting a missing child 

across state lines, Corporal Heid acted reasonably in 
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obtaining Gilliam’s cell phone location information without 

a warrant. 

Congress has “deemed it reasonable to subordinate any 

individual privacy interest in cell phone location 

information to society’s more compelling interest in 

preventing an imminent threat of death or serious bodily 

injury,” and has therefore given service providers the 

authority to decide whether there existed an “emergency 

involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any 

person.” United States v. Caraballo, 963 F. Supp. 2d 341, 

360 (D. Vt. 2013) (citations omitted), aff'd, 831 F.3d 95 

(2d Cir. 2016). Based on Heid’s affirmation, Sprint had a 

good faith basis for believing that the disclosure of 

Gilliam’s cell phone location was necessary to protect a 

missing child from being prostituted and subject to serious 

physical injury. 

II. Other Claims 

Gilliam’s other claims do not require extended 

discussion. His arrest was supported by probable cause, 

based both on events occurring at the scene of his arrest 

and his sex trafficking with respect to Jasmin. There was 
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no error in the jury charge, and the evidence fully 

supported the jury’s verdict. 

Conclusion 

The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.