In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15‐3421

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

MCKENZIE J. CARSON,

Defendant‐Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 11 CR 918 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 6, 2016 — DECIDED AUGUST 29, 2017

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and SYKES, Circuit

Judges.

ROVNER, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted McKenzie Carson

of four counts of violating the federal sex trafficking statute.

Three of those counts alleged that Carson engaged in sex

trafficking with knowledge that the victims were forced,

threatened or coerced. The other count alleged that Carson

was involved in the sex trafficking of a person under the age

of eighteen. He asks this court to reverse his conviction and
2 No. 15‐3421

remand for a new trial, claiming that he was prevented from

eliciting relevant testimony from his victims, that he was

precluded from effectively cross examining a key witness,

that the district court errantly admitted evidence of un‐

charged “bad acts,” and that he was prejudiced by incorrect‐

ly worded jury instructions. We find no reversible error and

thus affirm the decision of the district court.  

I.

Toward the end of 2009, Kaitlin Fratto’s neighbor, Chris‐

topher Richardson asked her if she would be interested in

working in an escort business run by his acquaintance,

McKenzie Carson. Fratto, although only seventeen years old,

was in need of money and expressed interest in the job.

Richardson brokered a meeting, but not before telling Car‐

son that Fratto was seventeen, as he worried that both of

them could get “into potentially a lot of trouble” if Fratto

worked as an escort while a minor. Tr. 12/2/13 at 165 (R. 161,

pageID 1495). Richardson drove Fratto to a Motel 6 in Joliet

to meet Carson, reminding him again that Fratto was seven‐

teen. Despite the warning, Carson asked Fratto to remove

her clothing, took her to the bathroom and raped her, threat‐

ening to kill her if she told anyone. After the rape, another

woman, Katie Smego arrived, and the four left for another

hotel where Carson took provocative photographs of Fratto

and Smego, including some in which the two were naked.

Carson used the photographs to post advertisements for

prostitution services on the website Backpage.com.

In the two day period after Carson posted the advertise‐

ments, Carson arranged one commercial sex transaction for

Fratto and two for Smego. He also arranged to have another

man take more photographs of Fratto for additional adver‐
No. 15‐3421 3

tisements on Backpage.com. As the photographs were being

taken, Richardson reminded Carson that Fratto was only

seventeen. After the photo session, Richardson drove Fratto

to and from three or four more commercial sex transactions

that night. Carson directed Richardson where to deliver the

money Fratto earned, but when Richardson insisted that

some of the money was his, a heated argument ensued in

which Carson told Richardson that if Richardson did not

bring both Fratto and the money back to him, “I’ll kill you,

I’ll kill your kids, I’ll kill your family.” Tr. 12/2/13 at 183 (R.

161, pageID 1513). Richardson relayed the threats to Fratto

who stayed with Richardson instead of returning to Carson.

Carson continued to call throughout the night, issuing more

threats and threatening to kill Fratto if he did not get his

money, and at one point telling Fratto that he had killed

Smego.  

Eventually Fratto agreed to continue working for Carson,

during which time she traded sex for money three or four

times a day. During the time Carson was trafficking Fratto,

he flattered her by telling her she was “his top notch bitch,”

that she was pretty, and would get rich modeling. Tr. 12/3/13

at 410–11 (R. 162, pageID 1740–41). He also tried to isolate

Fratto from her mother, took her battery out of her phone

and told her “he didn’t want [her] talking to nobody, and he

didn’t want nobody to know where [she] was.” Id. at 403

(R. 162, pageID 1733).  

Fratto testified that she told Carson that she was seven‐

teen and even showed him her identification card. In re‐

sponse, she testified that he said, “it was alright, that [they]

would just have to keep it under the radar until [she] turned

18.” Id.  
4 No. 15‐3421

Unlike Fratto, the remaining three victims were not mi‐

nors, but they were easily manipulable for other reasons. All

of them were long‐time drug addicts, homeless, desperate

for drugs and had nowhere to go.  

Veronica Del Valle was in just such a desperate state

when she met Carson. She testified that she had been using

crack cocaine since the age of twelve, and at the height of her

addiction any interruption left her throwing up, sweating,

unable to sleep and eat. In late 2009 and early 2010 she was

living in a crack house when another woman suggested she

could work as a prostitute for Carson. On two occasions in

2010 Del Valle left the crack house with Carson who took her

to a hotel, took seductive pictures of her for advertisements

he posted on Backpage.com and supplied her with drugs. In

the summer of 2010, he located her at the crack house again,

bought her drugs and convinced her to work as a prostitute,

promising that she would keep the money she earned and

that she could decide for herself when she wanted to work.

Del Valle ended up working for Carson for five to six

months, engaging in commercial sex transactions up to as

many as five times a day, staying with Carson at hotels, and

using drugs that he provided for her.

Del Valle testified that Carson took most of her money,

took away her personal cell phone and gave her a phone she

could use for “business” only. He checked her phone regu‐

larly to see if anybody out of the ordinary was calling her

and told her he would use the phone’s GPS to find her,

which, in fact, he did one night when Del Valle tried to

leave. Using the GPS to track her, he ran up and down a

street at 3 a.m. screaming her name. He also took away her

shoes and clothes to keep her from leaving the hotel where
No. 15‐3421 5

she stayed. But that was not enough control for Carson. He

beat her with belts, slapped her face, anally raped her, gave

her black eyes and cut lips and told her that if she “were to

leave, he would kill [her] grandmother and [her] children.”

Tr. 12/4/13 at 548 (R. 163, pageID 1879).

Like Del Valle, Jessica Sikora was a heroin addict who

experienced severe withdrawal—vomiting, sweating, and

pain—when she stopped using heroin. Sikora testified that

she too met Carson in 2010 when she was homeless. When

another woman told Sikora that Carson could get her a job

and a place to live, Sikora got into a car with Carson who

took her straight to Chicago’s west side to buy her heroin

and then to a hotel where she met Del Valle. Carson prom‐

ised he could “hook [her] up with dates,” that she would

make money, he would buy her drugs, cosmetics, anything

she needed, and give her a place to stay. Sikora knew she

had nowhere to go and decided to stay. What she did not

count on was the fact that Carson would require her to give

him all of the money she earned, ordering her to strip naked

so she could not hide money; that he would beat her with his

hands, with a belt, with an extension cord; that he would

hold a knife to her throat; and rape her orally, vaginally and

anally, including one time while a woman and her newborn

child watched. At one point, when she said she was too tired

to work, Carson punched her in the eye leaving her with a

permanently broken blood vessel.  

Nahrin Lazzar’s story was nearly the same. She became

addicted to heroin at 16 and was homeless in 2010 when Si‐

kora introduced her to Carson. She testified that she agreed

to join Carson’s business because she was homeless, had no

money, no food and was suffering from withdrawal symp‐
6 No. 15‐3421

toms and needed drugs. As was the case with the others,

Carson bought her drugs, brought her to a hotel room, and

placed advertisements for her sexual services on Back‐

page.com. But in Lazzar’s case, the physical violence began

immediately. Shortly after arriving, Carson became upset

with Lazzar and whipped her with a belt, leaving her back

and buttocks “red and puffy with slash marks.” Tr. 12/4/13

at 614 (R. 163, pageID 1945).  

Carson required Lazzar to give him all the money she

earned, and when she once tried to hide $100 in her pants,

Carson whipped her with a belt and orally raped her. He

then showed Lazzar a photograph of a buttocks with belt

marks and welts and threatened her saying, “What I did to

you is nothing [compared to] what I can do to you.” Tr.

12/5/13 at 895–96 (R. 164, pageID 2226–27). Lazzar also testi‐

fied that Carson supplied her with drugs but sometimes

withheld them from her so she would get ill from withdraw‐

al. Throughout her time with Carson, he beat her, whipped

her, and raped her orally, vaginally and anally.  

Lazzar eventually escaped from Carson by telling one of

her clients about her circumstances and asking for a ride to

Chicago. She left barefoot because Carson had taken her

shoes. The night she left, Carson called her at least ten to

twenty times.  

In addition to the testimony described above, the jury al‐

so heard from Margaret Hurley, who testified that from Jan‐

uary through March 2010, Carson paid her to drive the

women to their commercial sex transactions and retrieve

drugs for them. She also testified that she saw Carson beat

his victims, including Del Valle. Hurley testified that, as

with the other women, Carson took pictures of her that he
No. 15‐3421 7

posted in advertisements on Backpage.com, but she never

testified that she worked as a prostitute for Carson.

The government also called Dr. Sharon Cooper, a sex

trafficking expert who helped explain how the desperate sit‐

uations in which victims find themselves make them easy

targets for sex trafficking. Cooper testified that sex traffick‐

ers select victims who demonstrate vulnerabilities including

homelessness, substance abuse, mental health issues, and

histories of physical, emotional or sexual abuse. A typical

trafficker recruits victims by telling them that he loves them,

promising them a better life, providing them with shelter

and drugs, and lying to them about the nature of the job.

Traffickers often use one victim to recruit other victims as

victims are more likely to trust someone of a similar age and

gender than a stranger of the opposite gender.  

Cooper testified that traffickers control their victims

through physical violence, sexual violence, psychological

violence and grooming. Traffickers, she testified, groom vic‐

tims with promises and compliments, but escalate to physi‐

cal abuse, sexual assault and death threats. Often the traf‐

ficker will abuse a more experienced prostitute while

younger victims watch. They also use psychological violence

such as tearing a victim down, telling them they are worth‐

less, socially isolating them, and controlling them financially

and by taking advantage of a victim’s drug dependency.

Cooper noted that traffickers tend to be more violent with

adult women because children and minors are far easier to

intimidate.  

Importantly for this case, and for a general understand‐

ing of the complexity of trafficking in general, Cooper ex‐

plained that victims often stay with their traffickers—or
8 No. 15‐3421

leave and then return—because they believe they have no‐

where to go; that there is no one else out there for them, and

no other options for them; they feel ashamed and guilty and

stigmatized, thinking that they will not be accepted else‐

where. They are also afraid that if they leave, the trafficker

will find them and harm them even more egregiously.  

Given the testimony of Dr. Cooper, it was not surprising

that the jury heard testimony that could be construed as evi‐

dence that the victims had chosen their lot. For example, the

jury heard evidence that Fratto and Del Valle both left Car‐

son and then returned, and that at times both could have left

but did not do so. The jury heard evidence intended to con‐

vince them that these women willingly agreed to work as

prostitutes. But whether they willingly agreed to essentially

become enslaved—that is, to turn over all of their money

and freedom and suffer abuse—is another question, and the

one at the heart of the sex trafficking statute, of course. Del

Valle, for example, testified that she had the combination to

the safe where Carson kept her earnings, but that Carson

had threatened that he would kill her if she took the money

without permission. They also heard that some of the wom‐

en called themselves girlfriends of Carson and used terms of

endearment with him, although Del Valle, for example, said

she merely “played the role” and “acted like [she was] his

girlfriend” because it made her life easier. Tr. 12/4/13 at 671

(R. 163, pageID 2002). And they heard plenty of evidence of

victims who did not want to leave Carson because he fed

their heroin addictions, kept them from overdosing, gave

them a place to stay, and paid for their food and other needs.

The jury also heard evidence of women who turned to Car‐

son for emotional support—to figuratively bail them out of

difficult situations and literally bail them out of jail. But all
No. 15‐3421 9

of this evidence is not inconsistent with coercion and force.

Victims of sex trafficking may make decisions that look vol‐

untary at times due to the incredible weight of coercion and

force upon them. And they may make some decisions along

the way that are truly voluntary. Those decisions do not take

away from the fact that they have been held hostage, co‐

erced, forced, or threatened to engage in commercial sexual

acts. Sometimes that coercion and force may be subtle, lead‐

ing a fact‐finder to have to decipher whether the mens rea has

been met. But this is not such a case. There is nothing subtle

about rape, beatings, death threats, and taking women’s

clothes and phones so that they cannot readily escape. Car‐

son kept these victims under his control by using a tightly

woven web of rape, physical assault, threats, manipulation,

isolation, and fear.  

The jury convicted Carson on all four counts of violating

the federal sex‐trafficking statute, and Carson had the op‐

portunity at sentencing to submit expert testimony about his

Bipolar I Disorder, his problems with drug abuse, and his

abusive family background. Despite Carson’s submissions,

the district court sentenced Carson to forty‐seven years’ im‐

prisonment and five years of supervised release on each

count, with the sentences to run concurrently. The court sen‐

tenced Carson below the Sentencing Guideline recommen‐

dation of life and below the government’s recommended 55‐

year sentence.  

II.

The federal sex trafficking statute under which Carson

was indicted reads as follows:

(a) Whoever knowingly—
10 No. 15‐3421

in reckless disregard of the fact, that means of

force, threats of force, fraud, coercion de‐

scribed in subsection (e)(2), or any combination

of such means will be used to cause the person

to engage in a commercial sex act, or that the

person has not attained the age of 18 years and

will be caused to engage in a commercial sex

act, shall be punished as provided in subsec‐

tion (b).

18 U.S.C. § 1591(a).

The government charged Carson with trafficking Fratto

under both the coercion and age provisions. Counts 2–4

charged Carson with trafficking Lazzar, Sikora and Del Valle

under the coercion provision.  

A. Evidence of victims’ prior acts of prostitution.

Before the trial, the government moved to exclude evi‐

dence of or testimony regarding the victims’ sexual histories

and prior prostitution activities, arguing that such evidence

should be excluded under Federal Rules of Evidence 412 and

403. Rule 412, often referred to as the “rape shield law”

states:

(a) Prohibited Uses. The following evidence is

not admissible in a civil or criminal proceeding

involving alleged sexual misconduct:

(1) evidence offered to prove that a victim en‐

gaged in other sexual behavior; or

(2) evidence offered to prove a victimʹs sexual

predisposition.
No. 15‐3421 11

(b) Exceptions.

(1) Criminal Cases. The court may admit the

following evidence in a criminal case:

***

(B) evidence of specific instances of a victim’s

sexual behavior with respect to the person ac‐

cused of the sexual misconduct, if offered by

the defendant to prove consent or if offered by

the prosecutor; and

(C) evidence whose exclusion would violate

the defendant’s constitutional rights.

Fed. R. Evid. 412. Federal Rule of Evidence 403 is the general

rule that: “The court may exclude relevant evidence if its

probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of

one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the

issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or

needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.” Fed. R. Evid.

403.

Before the district court, Carson argued that evidence of

his awareness of the victim’s past prostitution had a direct

bearing on his defense, that he subjectively believed that the

women were not coerced into engaging in commercial sex

acts, but rather did so willingly. The district court rejected

Carson’s argument, relying on our prior decision in United

States v. Cephus, 684 F.3d 703 (7th Cir. 2012) and noting, that

“whatever happened before, that really doesn’t focus on

whether somebody was beaten or coerced by this defend‐

ant.” Tr. 11/19/13 at 33 (R. 179, pageID 33). We give district

courts much deference in their evidentiary decisions, revers‐

ing only for an abuse of discretion. Jackson v. Willis, 844 F.3d
12 No. 15‐3421

696, 701 (7th Cir. 2016). “And even if the district court erred

in excluding evidence, ‘[a] new trial is warranted only if the

error has a substantial and injurious effect or influence on

the determination of a jury and the result is inconsistent with

substantial justice.’” Arrigo v. Link, 836 F.3d 787, 794 (7th Cir.

2016) (citing Lewis v. City of Chi. Police Dep’t, 590 F.3d 427,

440 (7th Cir. 2009)).  

The evidence that Carson wished to introduce at trial is

classic propensity evidence—that is evidence that the wom‐

en had been prostitutes before made it more likely that they

had voluntarily consented to these acts with Carson. But

Carson attempts to twist it out of this usually forbidden

realm by arguing that the fact of their prior prostitution was

relevant to his state of mind, that is, whether he acted

“knowingly, or in reckless disregard of the fact, that means

of force, threats of force, ... coercion ..., or any combination

of such means will be used to cause the person to engage in

a commercial sex act” as forbidden by the statute under

which he was charged, 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a). That twist would

bring him under one of the exceptions to Federal Rule of Ev‐

idence 412(C) which allows evidence of prior sexual acts to

be admitted if its exclusion would violate a constitutional

right. Federal Rule of Evidence 412(b)(1)(C). In other words,

Carson claims that the district court violated his Sixth

Amendment rights when it barred him from presenting evi‐

dence of other sexual acts or prostitution by his victims.

Such an argument—that the exclusion of the evidence vio‐

lated a defendant’s constitutional rights—requires de novo

review by this court. United States v. Peterson, 823 F.3d 1113,

1122 (7th Cir. 2016).  
No. 15‐3421 13

Defendant’s argument—that he was unable to argue ef‐

fectively that he lacked the requisite state of mind to violate

Section 1591—was not one that he made in the district court.

In the district court, his motion stated: “This evidence is ad‐

missible because it will allow the jury to determine if each of

the women was actually deceived.” R. 74 at 3. Because it is a

new argument, we review it for plain error. Fed. R. Crim. P.

52(b). United States v. Kruger, 839 F.3d 572, 577 (7th Cir.

2016). But regardless of how we review the defendant’s ar‐

gument, the prohibited evidence was not relevant to Car‐

son’s mens rea and so he suffered no harm, constitutional or

otherwise, when it was excluded.  

Although “the Constitution guarantees criminal defend‐

ants a meaningful opportunity to present a complete de‐

fense ... [it] does not require the admission of irrelevant evi‐

dence (or other types of evidence whose relevance is out‐

weighed by other important considerations).” United States

v. Beavers, 756 F.3d 1044, 1052 (7th Cir. 2014) (internal cita‐

tions omitted). In this case, whether the victims had previ‐

ously worked as prostitutes was irrelevant to the required

mens rea for the crime.  

Recall that § 1591 requires that Carson knowingly or

recklessly disregarded the fact that force, threats of force,

and coercion, and any combination of such means, would be

used to cause any of his victims—Fratto, Del Valle, Sikora

and Lazzar—to engage in a commercial sex act. See 18 U.S.C.

§1591(a). Whether they had previously worked as prostitutes

was irrelevant to the required mens rea above. First, as the

government points out, Carson proffered no evidence to the

district court that his victims had voluntarily engaged in

commercial sex transactions on other occasions. Unless he
14 No. 15‐3421

knew that the victims had voluntarily done so in the past, he

could not have reason to believe they would do so in the fu‐

ture. In other words, voluntary prostitution is a completely

separate act from commercial sex transactions that occur as

the result of force or coercion in the context of sex traffick‐

ing, and Carson offered no evidence that the women he vic‐

timized had engaged in the voluntary act as opposed to hav‐

ing been victims before, or more importantly, that he knew

that the prior acts were voluntary. If anything, Carson must

have known that whatever traits made these women easy

targets for his coercion, would have made them easy targets

for others as well.  

Second, even if Carson could demonstrate that his vic‐

tims had willingly and voluntarily worked as prostitutes in

the past, based on the overwhelming evidence at trial, Car‐

son could not plausibly argue that his victims willingly

worked for him or that he thought his victims were willingly

working for him. The government presented example after

example of compelling evidence of coercion —evidence that

Carson beat and raped the victims, that he threatened to

stalk and kill them and their families, the manner in which

he isolated them from the outside world, confiscating their

telephones, money, identification, clothes, shoes, and ma‐

nipulating them with false promises and controlling their

access to the drugs for which they were physically and men‐

tally dependent. Whether they had worked as prostitutes

previously would have no effect on whether Carson knew

(or recklessly disregarded the fact) that force, threats of force

or coercion would have caused his victims to engage in

commercial sex acts under his “employ.” This is particularly

true because Carson was the one using force, threatening,

and coercing them. Had Carson truly subjectively believed
No. 15‐3421 15

(whether correctly or not) that the victims were voluntarily

working for him as prostitutes, he would have had no rea‐

son to rape, beat and threaten them, to take their telephones,

clothing, shoes and control their access to drugs.

Force and coercion can be complicated topics. Some‐

times, for example, a minor can be forced into sex trafficking

by fraud alone. See, e.g., United States v. McMillian, 777 F.3d

444, 447 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 2392, 192 L. Ed. 2d

176 (2015). Women in desperate circumstances find them‐

selves in situations where they are without homes, in need

of drugs or food or protection and must make difficult deci‐

sions. The victims in this case certainly were in this category.

Each one was inextricably hooked on illegal drugs and with‐

out resources or anywhere to go. Sometimes women in such

dire circumstances voluntarily exchange sex to obtain the

things they desperately need. But there is nothing voluntary

when they are forced to do so by another person. And there

is nothing blurry or in the grey area when the coercion in‐

volves, rape, brutal physical violence, abrupt withholding of

drugs to cause severe withdrawal symptoms, death threats,

taking women’s phones and clothing and following them

with GPS technology. No rational person could witness such

force and coercion, let alone inflict it himself, without know‐

ing or recklessly disregarding the fact that the threats and

force of threats and coercion, or any combination of them,

caused these women to engage in commercial sex acts.

Our decision today follows directly from the conclusion

in Cephus, which involved a sex trafficker who brutally beat

women who failed to comply with his orders. There the de‐

fendant wished to cross‐examine one of the victims about

her prior work as a prostitute to demonstrate that she would
16 No. 15‐3421

not have been deceived by the defendant and thus was not

coerced into working for him. Cephus, 684 F.3d. at 708. We

concluded that any such evidence would have been irrele‐

vant, explaining that,  

[The defendant] wanted to suggest that having

already been a prostitute she would not have

been deceived by [the defendant] and therefore

her testimony that she was coerced into work‐

ing for him ... should be disbelieved. But the

testimony sought to be elicited by the cross‐

examination would have been irrelevant. Even

if no promises were made to [the victim], this

would not be evidence that she consented to be

beaten and to receive no share of the fees paid

by the johns she serviced. And even if she

knew going in, from her prior experience, that

[the defendant] probably would beat her, it

was still a crime for him to do so. And finally

the fact that she’d been a prostitute before does

not suggest that he didn’t beat and threaten

her—that was his modus operandi and there’s no

evidence that he would have made an excep‐

tion for Cassandra.

Id.

For the same reasons, a number of other circuit courts

have similarly held that acts of prior prostitution are irrele‐

vant to a charge under § 1591(a) and thus barred. Most re‐

cently, the First Circuit, in a case where the defendant was

making the same mens rea argument in a sex trafficking case,

noted that similar evidence of prior prostitution was “either

entirely irrelevant or of such slight probative value in com‐
No. 15‐3421 17

parison to its prejudicial effect that a decision to exclude it

would not violate [the defendant’s] constitutional rights.”

United States v. Gemma, 818 F.3d 23, 34 (1st Cir.), cert. denied,

137 S. Ct. 410 (2016). The court went on to note that the vic‐

tim’s participation in prostitution before or after doing so

with the defendant had no relevance as to whether this par‐

ticular defendant used force and the threat of force to cause

her to engage in commercial sex. Id. (citing United States v.

Roy, 781 F.3d 416, 420 (8th Cir.2015) (same); United States v.

Lockhart, 844 F.3d 501, 510 (5th Cir. 2016) (evidence of the

victim’s pre‐ and post‐indictment acts of prostitution would

be irrelevant as to whether the defendants caused the victim

to engage in a commercial sex act in instant case); United

States v. Rivera, 799 F.3d 180, 186 (2d Cir. 2015), cert. denied,

136 S. Ct. 2396 (2016) (“That some of the victims may have

been prostitutes before working at the bars does not suggest

that Appellants did not later threaten them with violence or

deportation in order to coerce them into commercial sex.

Thus there was no relevant use of cross‐examination testi‐

mony sought by Appellants and the district court did not err

by precluding it.”); United States v. Valenzuela, 495 Fed.

Appx. 817, 819–20 (9th Cir. 2012) (“whether appellants be‐

lieved the victims were working in prostitution prior to com‐

ing to the United States and thus would willingly continue is

irrelevant because there is ample evidence that the victims

did not continue to work willingly once in the United States

while the defendants harbored and maintained them with

the knowledge that force, fraud, or coercion would be used

to cause the victims to engage in commercial sex.”); United

States v. Elbert, 561 F.3d 771, 777 (8th Cir. 2009) (whether mi‐

nor victims “had engaged in acts of prostitution before or

after their encounters with [the defendant] is irrelevant, and
18 No. 15‐3421

would only prove other people may be guilty of similar of‐

fenses of recruiting, enticing, or causing these victims to en‐

gage in a commercial sex act.”)

In sum, evidence about the victims’ prior commercial sex

acts was irrelevant to the question of whether Carson knew

or recklessly disregarded the fact that his own use of force,

threats, and coercion caused the victims to engage in com‐

mercial sex acts during their time with him. The district

court did not err in barring evidence of prior commercial sex

acts by the victims in this case.

B. Limitations in the cross‐examination of the govern‐

ment witness.

To convince the jury that Carson knew that Fratto was

only seventeen years old, the government called Christopher

Richardson who testified that he personally told Carson on

at least two separate occasions about Fratto’s age.1 Richard‐

son was far from an ideal government witness. He was testi‐

fying under a grant of immunity, had participated in many

aspects of the crime at hand, was a convicted felon and a ha‐

bitual drug user. The jury found out about all of this. At trial

Richardson testified that the government had offered him a

grant of immunity to testify and that he understood that

nothing he would say in his testimony could be used against

him in the future. Richardson then testified about the role he

                                                 

1 The government’s expert witness on sex trafficking testified that people

involved in the sex trafficking trade commonly tell other traffickers the

age of minors because if the receiving trafficker is prosecuted for his un‐

witting use of a minor and that information was known but undisclosed

by the selling trafficker, then the receiving trafficker will retaliate against

the selling trafficker because of the increased penalties for trafficking a

minor. Tr. 12/3/13 at 288 (R. 162 at pageID 1618).
No. 15‐3421 19

played in trafficking Fratto. Richardson brokered the intro‐

duction between Carson and Fratto, he watched as Carson

took provocative (and sometimes nude) pictures of the un‐

derage Fratto to use in advertising her services and he drove

Fratto to some of her appointments where she exchanged

sex for money. During his direct examination, the jury also

learned that Richardson used marijuana almost daily from

the time he was 15 until the time he was 28, he started selling

cocaine when he was 19 years old, and in 2010 he was con‐

victed of a felony narcotics offense for which he received a

five‐year sentence. The defense honed in on all of this to its

advantage arguing in closing that Richardson was a convict‐

ed drug dealer, testifying under a grant of immunity and

that his testimony deserved “little to no[]” weight. Tr.

12/10/13 at 1322 (R. 166, pageID 2653).

But Carson wished to sully Richardson’s testimony more.

Over the government’s objection, Carson’s counsel tried to

question Richardson about a trip he took with Fratto to

Springfield, Illinois after Fratto began working for Carson.

Carson’s counsel informed the district court that he had evi‐

dence that during the trip Richardson “offered to pimp”

Fratto. The district court ruled the line of questioning irrele‐

vant and forbade it, reasoning that were he to allow it “we

would end up trying a different case.” Tr. 12/3/13 at 228

(R. 162, pageID 1526).

A district court has broad discretion to impose reasona‐

ble limits on the extent and scope of cross‐examination.

United States v. Recendiz, 557 F.3d 511, 530 (7th Cir. 2009). But

of course those limits are constrained by a defendant’s Sixth

Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him.

Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 678 (1986). Although
20 No. 15‐3421

“the Sixth Amendment guarantees defendant an opportuni‐

ty for effective cross‐examination ... there is no guarantee of

cross‐examination to whatever extent the defense might

wish.” Recendiz, 557 F.3d at 530. Where a trial court’s limita‐

tion on cross‐examination directly implicates the “core val‐

ues of the Confrontation Clause,” we review the limitation

de novo; otherwise, we review for abuse of discretion. Id.

One core value is the ability to expose a witness’s motiva‐

tion, biases or incentives for lying. Id. (citing Van Arsdall,

475 U.S. 678–79); See also United States v. Smith, 454 F.3d 707,

714 (7th Cir. 2006). “However, once a trial court permits a

defendant to expose a witness’s motivation, it is of peripher‐

al concern to the Sixth Amendment how much opportunity

defense counsel gets to hammer that point home to the ju‐

ry.” Recendiz, 557 F.3d at 530 (citing United States v. Nelson,

39 F.3d 705, 708 (7th Cir. 1994)); see also Delaware v. Fensterer,

474 U.S. 15, 20 (1985) (“the Confrontation Clause guarantees

an opportunity for effective cross‐examination, not cross‐

examination that is effective in whatever way, and to what‐

ever extent, the defense might wish.”).  

It would offend the Sixth Amendment to deny a defend‐

ant the ability to establish that the witness had a motive to

lie, but once that motivation has been established, the de‐

fendant has no constitutional right to pile on. See Recendiz,

557 F.3d at 530. And after the motive has been established, a

judge has a wide latitude to impose reasonable limits on

cross‐examination. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 679. The district

court judge can decide that the defendant has had ample

opportunity to demonstrate motivation and that additional

cross‐examination is either not relevant, too prejudicial,

would confuse the jury, is repetitive, or any of the other
No. 15‐3421 21

many reasons a district court might limit the scope of cross

examination. See Id.; Nelson, 39 F.3d at 708. Even if the judge

prohibits the cross‐examination in error, that error is harm‐

less depending upon factors such as the importance of the

witness’s testimony in the prosecution’s case, whether the

testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of cor‐

roborating or contradictory evidence, and the overall

strength of the prosecution’s case. Smith, 454 F.3d at 715.

Because the district court did not prevent Carson from

establishing Richardson’s motivation for testifying or lying

during his testimony, the court’s limitation on the evidence

about the trip to Springfield did not implicate Carson’s Sixth

Amendment right to confrontation. See, e.g. Recendiz, 557

F.3d at 530. Thus we review the district court’s decision to

limit the cross‐examination for an abuse of discretion. But

even were we reviewing de novo, this is a case in which the

witness’s motivations were amply exposed. Richardson testi‐

fied off the bat that he was testifying in exchange for a grant

of immunity. The jury learned that he had a tremendous

amount to gain by testifying. There was no question that he

was covered in the detritus of Carson’s sex trafficking of a

minor. After all, he brokered the introduction, drove Fratto

to two different hotel rooms, paid for the hotel room in

which Carson raped Fratto and then took pictures of the

Fratto and others posed provocatively both in lingerie and in

the nude. Tr. 12/2/13 at 163–179 (R. 161 at pageID 1493–

1509). Richardson even accepted pay to drive some of the

women, including Fratto, to various commercial sex transac‐

tions. In other words, Richardson was up to his elbows in

Carson’s illicit sex trafficking scheme and likely on the hook

for child pornography as well (although neither Carson nor

Richardson were ever indicted on child pornography charg‐
22 No. 15‐3421

es). Carson does not offer the court any reason why he

thinks that the addition of the possible Springfield pimping

episode would have made Richardson look any worse in the

eyes of the jury than he already did because of his participa‐

tion in the sex trafficking scheme in Chicago. Nor does Car‐

son explain why Richardson would be more likely to lie to

get off the hook for the Springfield pimping than he was for

the Chicago pimping (and possibly child pornography). In

other words, the evidence Carson hoped to elicit from Rich‐

ardson was merely cumulative. And given the fact that

Richardson’s intentions for the Springfield trip were un‐

known and contested, the district court was well within its

right to prevent the confusion of a trial within a trial that

might occur should the evidence be permitted. “The right to

confrontation is not implicated where ‘limitations on cross‐

examination did not deny the defendants the opportunity to

establish that the witnesses may have had a motive to lie; ra‐

ther, the limitations denied them the opportunity to add extra

detail to that motive.’” Recendiz, 557 F.3d at 530 (citing Nelson,

39 F.3d at 708). Moreover, the district court was also well

within its right to limit cross‐examination where the infor‐

mation could have confused the jury, causing it to end up

“trying a different case.” Tr. 12/3/13 at 228 (R. 162, pageID

1558). A district court’s broad discretion to limit evidence

includes evidence that might confuse a jury. United States v.

Trent, No. 16‐3960, 2017 WL 2979658, at *4 (7th Cir. July 13,

2017). The district court did not abuse its discretion by ex‐

cluding the Springfield testimony.

C. Evidence of the defendant’s prior bad acts.

The federal rules of evidence prohibit an opponent from

admitting evidence of other acts “to prove a person’s charac‐
No. 15‐3421 23

ter in order to show that on a particular occasion the person

acted in accordance with the character.” Fed. R. Evid.

404(b)(1). In other words, we do not allow evidence of prior

bad acts to prove or hint to the jury that a defendant is the

“kind of person” who would commit an act like the one for

which he is charged—that he has the propensity to act in a

certain criminal manner. The evidence of other acts, howev‐

er, may be used to demonstrate “motive, opportunity, intent,

preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake,

or lack of intent.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b).

Carson argues that several pieces of evidence and testi‐

mony constituted propensity evidence—evidence used for

the impermissible purpose of proving his character and that

he acted in accordance therewith. The difficulty is, of course,

that evidence of other acts can serve several purposes at

once, leaving courts to decide when such multi‐purposed

evidence can be used. Our court has resolved the question

by allowing it only when “its admission is supported by

some propensity‐free chain of reasoning.” United States v.

Gomez, 763 F.3d 845, 856 (7th Cir. 2014) (en banc). “This is

not to say that other‐act evidence must be excluded whenev‐

er a propensity inference can be drawn; rather, Rule 404(b)

excludes the evidence if its relevance to ‘another purpose’ is

established only through the forbidden propensity infer‐

ence.” Id. In short, we must determine how the evidence of

other acts is relevant without relying on a propensity infer‐

ence. Id. And when doing so, we give great deference to the

district court’s assessment of whether to admit evidence in

light of Rule 404(b), and reverse only for an abuse of discre‐

tion. United States v. Ferrell, 816 F.3d 433, 442 (7th Cir. 2015).
24 No. 15‐3421

The “other acts” evidence to which Carson objected, con‐

sisted of testimony about women who were not victims of

the crimes charged in this case, but whose names and details

were mentioned as the government presented details of the

victims’ experiences with Carson. Evidence about these

women appeared at the trial in various forms. For example,

Margaret Hurley testified that she drove other women to

their appointments and appeared in Carson’s advertise‐

ments. Katie Smego’s name was mentioned in testimony be‐

cause she posed with Fratto in provocative photographs that

Carson posted in the advertising section of Backpage.com.

Another woman, Amanda, was in the room with her new‐

born son as Carson raped Del Valle. Other women ‘s names

were mentioned because they too were present when vari‐

ous parts of the charged crimes occurred, because they in‐

troduced the victims in this case to Carson, or Carson posted

similar and sometimes identical advertisements for their

services in Backpage.com.

The government countered that the evidence it sought to

admit served as direct evidence of the charged conduct and

thus outside the realm of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) or,

in the alternative, as evidence of Carson’s modus operandi and

thus was admissible under 404(b).  

Carson appears to be arguing that evidence of a defend‐

ant’s modus operandi can be introduced only where a defend‐

ant’s identity is in question. Brief of Appellant, Carson at 43–

44. Evidence of modus operandi is evidence that shows a de‐

fendant’s distinctive method of operation. United States v.

Robinson, 161 F.3d 463, 467 (7th Cir. 1998). Although it is true

that we permit modus operandi evidence to demonstrate the

identity of the defendant and it is generally used as such, we
No. 15‐3421 25

have never held that it can be used exclusively for these

purposes. See Id.; see also, Gomez, 763 F.3d at 861 (“one ac‐

cepted way to use other‐act evidence to prove identity is to

argue that the perpetrator had a distinctive modus operan‐

di.”); Nelson v. City of Chicago, 810 F.3d 1061, 1071 (7th Cir.

2016) (litigiousness can, on rare occasions be used to demon‐

strate the defendant’s modus operandi of creating fraudulent

documents in anticipation of litigation); United States v.

McGuire, 627 F.3d 622, 626–27 (7th Cir. 2010) (holding that

testimony of the defendant’s modus operandi was permissible

to demonstrate how the defendant used fear and shame to

keep his child victims from reporting the molestation, thus

countering defendant’s argument that his victim’s long de‐

lay in reporting the conduct demonstrated that the victim

was lying); but see United States v. Fraser, 448 F.3d 833, 840

(6th Cir. 2006) (“Proof of ‘modus operandi’ is generally used to

demonstrate identity”); Chavez v. City of Albuquerque, 402

F.3d 1039, 1046 (10th Cir. 2005) (“proof of a ‘modus operan‐

di’ is only relevant when there is an issue regarding the de‐

fendantʹs identity.”). We need not decide the question today.

Like all other evidence of prior bad acts, modus operandi

can only be used if it is “relevant to a specific purpose other

than the person’s character or propensity to behave in a cer‐

tain way,” and that relevance must be “established through

a chain of reasoning that does not rely on the forbidden in‐

ference that the person has a certain character and acted in

accordance with that character on the occasion charged in

the case.” Gomez, 763 F.3d at 860. Similarly, “Rule 404(b)

does not require the party offering the evidence to force the

evidence into a particular listed category, but simply to

show any relevant purpose other than proving conduct by

means of a general propensity inference.” Robinson, 161 F.3d
26 No. 15‐3421

at 466–67. Thus, if the evidence the government offered is

modus operandi evidence or evidence in some other form,

provided it was not used to demonstrate the defendant’s

propensity for acting in accordance with the prior bad acts,

the district court did not err by admitting it.

Some of the evidence to which Carson objects is not evi‐

dence of prior bad acts at all, but rather direct evidence of

the crime. And as such Rule 404(b) is not applicable at all.

Ferrell, 816 F.3d at 443. See also United States v. Adams, 628

F.3d 407, 414 (7th Cir. 2010) (“if the evidence is admitted as

direct evidence of the charged offense, Rule 404(b) is not ap‐

plicable”). For example, the description of the other woman,

Katie Smego, in the hotel room when Fratto met Carson is

not evidence of another bad act, but merely a description of

the scene into which Fratto arrived. It would be odd for Frat‐

to to testify about her first encounter with Carson and not be

able to describe who else was in the room when the crime

had its genesis. And it is directly relevant to the charged

crime because, as Dr. Cooper testified, sex traffickers often

use other women of the same approximate age and back‐

ground as grooming tools to help coerce a victim into joining

the trafficking enterprise. This is not, therefore, another bad

act, but rather part and parcel of the crime at issue. Likewise,

Fratto’s description of taking provocative pictures with

Smego is direct evidence of the crime for which Carson was

charged—sex trafficking an underage Fratto.  

Similarly, the testimony from the driver, Margaret Hur‐

ley, established that she was present when the women (and

in at least one case, a girl) were paid and then handed their

money over to Carson, and that she was present when some

of the women were beaten. Her testimony was direct evi‐
No. 15‐3421 27

dence of the crime. That it may have tangentially mentioned

driving other women who were not named victims in the

course of driving the named victims is of no moment, and

certainly if it was prejudicial, it was well within the realm of

discretion for the district court judge to admit it after balanc‐

ing the probative value against the risk of prejudice. See

Thompson v. City of Chicago, 472 F.3d 444, 453 (7th Cir. 2006).

The fact of the matter is that Carson ran a sex‐trafficking

business with many women in his grasp. It would be near to

impossible to describe any of the operations involving the

named victims without mentioning the other women who

were in the same hotel rooms at the same time, whose adver‐

tisements ran alongside those of the named victims, who

were being driven to and from the commercial sex transac‐

tions by the same driver at the same time, and who either

watched the physical, emotional and sexual abuse of the vic‐

tims or were watched by them while being abused.

In addition to being direct evidence of the crime, much of

the evidence to which Carson objected helped to corroborate

the details of the victims’ testimony—testimony that the de‐

fense claimed was not credible. See United States v. King, 627

F.3d 641, 649 (7th Cir. 2010) (other acts evidence can be used

to corroborate testimony). For example, Fratto’s testimony

that she was forced to work with other prostitutes named

China and Vanessa was corroborated by evidence of Car‐

son’s advertisements for women named “China” and

“Vanessa.”

Carson singles out one particular example of other bad

act testimony to which he particularly objects—that is, that

Sikora testified that Carson raped her in the presence of an‐

other woman, Amanda and her newborn child, who sat in
28 No. 15‐3421

the room as she screamed out and cried. The rape was direct

evidence of Carson coercing one of his victims and exerting

control over her. The presence of another in such a rape is

not extraneous or evidence of other bad acts, it is a key part

of the message from the defendant that “I control you and

can do as I please and I have so much power that no one else

will come to your aid, even if they are sitting right in the

room.” It also explained to the jury the existence of photo‐

graphs of the act. This was evidence of the very crime, pure

and simple. In the same vein, the evidence about Katie

Smego also helped create the climate of fear. Fratto testified

that when she tried to leave the defendant told her that he

would kill her like he had already killed Smego. These types

of details are directly relevant to the crime at issue which

specifically entails force and threats of force.  

This testimony was also particularly relevant because

Carson argued that these victims “acted as his girlfriend,

coming back for more work after leaving voluntarily, and

asking him to control their cash and limit their drug con‐

sumption,” or providing them with a place to stay. Brief of

Appellant, Carson at 49. This evidence, however, is evidence

of coercion—coercion through intimidation and rape, and by

sending a message that his control was so severe that other

women present would not come to the aid of the victims.

And the fact that Carson kept women around in hotel

rooms, or hired drivers to control their movements on the

way to and from the transactions, was further evidence of

the power of his large enterprise and sent the message out

that he was the CEO and the one in control.  

Although some of this evidence was prejudicial, in the

sense that it mentions more women victims than were repre‐
No. 15‐3421 29

sented in the crimes for which Carson was charged, we cer‐

tainly cannot say that the district court erred in finding that

it was not unfairly prejudicial as that term is used in Federal

Rule of Evidence 403 (“the court may exclude evidence if its

probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger

of ... unfair prejudice.”). Given the nature of the evidence of

threats, rapes, beatings with hands, belts, extension cords,

etc., the brief references to other women were not unfairly

prejudicial to Carson. It is hard to imagine that the govern‐

ment’s case would have been significantly less persuasive

had the allegedly improper evidence been excluded. See

Gomez, 763 F.3d at 863.  

D. Jury instructions.

Carson claims that the district court’s erroneous instruc‐

tion on “reckless disregard” drastically lowered the mens rea

needed to convict and thus his conviction should be re‐

versed. That instruction was as follows:

A person “recklessly disregards” a fact within

the meaning of this offense when he is aware

of, but consciously or carelessly ignores facts

and circumstances that would reveal the fact

that either: (1) force, threats of force, or coer‐

cion would be used to cause the person identi‐

fied in the indictment to engage in a commer‐

cial sex act, or (2) the person identified in the

indictment was under eighteen years of age

and would be caused to engage in a commer‐

cial sex act.

R. 88 at 30. We review de novo “whether jury instructions

accurately summarize the law, but give[s] the district court
30 No. 15‐3421

substantial discretion to formulate the instructions provided

that the instructions represent a complete and correct state‐

ment of the law.” United States v. Daniel, 749 F.3d 608, 613

(7th Cir. 2014).  

Carson argues, and the government concedes, that the

instruction should have stated that Carson must “conscious‐

ly and carelessly ignore” facts and circumstances that would

reveal that coercion had occurred. Carson argues that the

jury could have found that he carelessly and not consciously

ignored certain facts and circumstances thus lowering the

mens rea to mere negligence and not recklessness as required.

The government concedes that the instruction was incorrect

but argues that Carson forfeited the argument by failing to

raise it below and that in any case the error did not affect

Carson’s substantial rights.  

Before the district court Carson argued “[w]hen you give

the reckless disregard instruction, that lowers the burden of

proof, and we believe that it eliminates mens rea, so we are

objecting.” Tr. 12/9/13 at 1215 (R. 165. pageID 2546). The ob‐

jection was indeed bare bones. “In order to preserve an issue

for appellate review, a party must make a proper objection

at trial that alerts the court and opposing party to the specif‐

ic grounds for the objection.” United States v. Thomas, 845

F.3d 824, 831 (7th Cir. 2017). The objection cannot be merely

a generalized objection, but must state with particularity the

problem in the instruction. United States v. Stott, 245 F.3d

890, 907 (7th Cir. 2001), amended on rehʹg in part, 15 F. Appʹx

355 (7th Cir. 2001), citing United States v. Roth, 860 F.2d 1382,

1390 (7th Cir. 1988) (“An objection that does not point out

the problem in the instruction is insufficient because it does

not give fair prospect of timely correction.”) On the other
No. 15‐3421 31

hand, a party is “not required to adhere to any formalities of

language and style to preserve his objection on the record,”

but rather it is sufficient to state the objection and the

grounds for it distinctly. United States v. OʹNeill, 116 F.3d

245, 247 (7th Cir. 1997) (internal citations omitted). This is a

close case in terms of the level of specificity required of the

objection, but we need not decide whether to review as a

plain error or harmless error, because under either standard

the defendant was not harmed. United States v. Hilliard, 851

F.3d 768, 782 (7th Cir. 2017) (“If the instruction contains an

error or misguides the jury, we reverse a jury verdict only if

the error prejudiced the litigant.”). “Even a jury‐instruction

error of constitutional dimension is subject to the familiar

requirement that the error have [sic] harmed the defendant.

In other words, to constitute reversible error, the plain error

must have affected the defendant’s substantial rights such

that there is a reasonable probability that but for the error

the outcome of the trial would have been different.” United

States v. Cardena, 842 F.3d 959, 998 (7th Cir. 2016).

The risk that the jurors might have found that Carson

merely ignored the facts and circumstances carelessly rather

than recklessly was mitigated by the fact that the jury in‐

structions also contained the following instruction on the

term “knowingly:’

A person acts knowingly if he realizes what he

is doing and is aware of the nature of his con‐

duct and does not act through ignorance, mis‐

take or accident. In deciding whether the de‐

fendant acted knowingly, you may consider all

of the evidence including what the defendant

did or said.  
32 No. 15‐3421

(R. 88 at 29); Tr. 12/10/13 at 1375 (R. 166, pageID 2706). Thus,

even if the jurors found that the defendant carelessly ig‐

nored relevant facts and circumstances, it still had to find

that Carson knew those facts and circumstances in the first

place, thus mitigating any concern that the jurors may have

held Carson accountable for negligent rather than reckless

behavior.  

Moreover, given the overwhelming nature of the evi‐

dence of Carson’s state of mind any error would have been

harmless. A careless disregard of knowledge scenario might

apply to a participant in a sex trafficking scheme who played

a minor role—for example, one who acted as a driver but

who stuck his head in the sand about what happened to the

women after he dropped them off at a designated address,

but it is hard to imagine how Carson could carelessly disre‐

gard the circumstances of the force or coercion when he was

the actor forcing and coercing by manner of rape, beatings,

threats, isolation, and by taking the victims’ cell phones and

clothing away. Similarly, there was also overwhelming evi‐

dence that Carson knew that Fratto was a minor. Both Fratto

and Richardson testified that they told Carson several times,

and that Fratto showed Carson her identification card. An

inaccurate jury instruction constitutes harmless error where

the evidence is one‐sided or overwhelming. United States v.

Dobek, 789 F.3d 698, 701 (7th Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct.

272 (2015). There is no reasonable probability that “but for

the error the outcome of the trial would have been differ‐

ent.” Cardena, 842 F.3d at 998.  

Carson also objects to the fact that the instruction re‐

quired only that Carson was “aware of ... facts and circum‐

stances that would reveal” a fact that he must have reckless‐
No. 15‐3421 33

ly disregarded under the statute. Carson argues that crimi‐

nal recklessness requires more than awareness of “facts from

which the inference could be drawn,” but rather requires

that the defendant actually drew the inference. Brief of Ap‐

pellant, Carson, at 51. The plain language of Section 1591

criminalizes sex‐trafficking activities done “in reckless dis‐

regard of the fact” that force, threats of force, fraud, or coer‐

cion will cause someone to prostitute herself or that a victim

is a minor. 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a). Other courts to have consid‐

ered the question have concluded that the phrase “reckless

disregard” in this statute requires only an awareness of facts

and circumstances that give rise to a risk of a Section 1591

violation, not an awareness of the risk itself. United States v.

Jackson, 622 Fed. Appʹx 526, 528 (6th Cir. 2015) (“Indeed, the

statute explicitly provides that ‘[i]n a prosecution under sub‐

section (a)(1) in which the defendant had a reasonable op‐

portunity to observe the person so recruited, enticed, har‐

bored, transported, provided, obtained or maintained, the

Government need not prove that the defendant knew that

the person had not attained the age of 18 years.’ 18 U.S.C.

§ 1591(c). Reckless disregard of the victims’ age is sufficient

to obtain a conviction.”) United States v. Phea, 755 F.3d 255,

261 (5th Cir. 2014) (“the Government did not have to prove

that [the defendant] ‘knew’ [the victim] had not attained the

age of eighteen if there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt

that [the defendant] had a reasonable opportunity to observe

[the victim].”)

The government focused much of its closing argument

on Carson’s actual knowledge, and there was plenty of evi‐

dence from which to draw. In other words, the government

set forth a theory that Carson had actual knowledge of

threats, force and coercion and of Fratto’s age. The evidence
34 No. 15‐3421

in this case was overwhelming that Carson knowingly re‐

cruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained,

advertised, maintained, patronized, and or solicited his vic‐

tims knowing, or in reckless disregard of the fact, that means

of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion or some combina‐

tion of those means was used to cause his victims to engage

in a commercial sex act, and that in the case of one victim,

that she engaged in a commercial sex transaction and had

not attained the age of 18 in violation of 18 § U.S.C. § 1591.

We AFFIRM the defendant’s conviction and sentence.