Opinion ID: 4108554
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statement of the Facts as Presented at the Trial

Text: At trial, the government presented evidence that Williams acted as a pimp for a number of women, a contention that Williams admitted. Three women—Talia, Erika, and a woman named Ivy whom Williams also controlled—testified about their interactions with Williams as they engaged in commercial sex acts.2 Erika met Williams at a casino in March 2010 and found him attractive. Id. at 284. She had been a prostitute for 12 years, and she testified that when she met Williams she wanted “to pay him” and “be with him.” Id. at 286. Erika testified that she worked voluntarily for Williams until her arrest in May 2012. Id. at 285-87. Talia also met Williams at a casino. She had moved to Philadelphia in July 2010 to live with her godfather and to attend a community college as an “opportunity to start over” after her mother found out that she had been dancing at a club in Atlanta. Id. at 123. But she started dancing again in Philadelphia, and in November 2011, when she was 20 years old, her godfather required her to leave his house. Id. at 126-27. A few days later, she met Williams at a casino. Id. at 127. She testified that he impressed her and she made the personal choice to leave with him. Id. at 125, 181-82. After Talia travelled with Williams to New York and met two other women who also were working for Williams as prostitutes, he convinced her to do so as well. Id. at 129-31. When she originally considered his proposal, she “burst[] into tears.” Williams, however, consoled her and “tried to make it seem like it was okay.” Id. at 131. Talia 2 We will focus on Talia’s and Erika’s testimony, as they were the victims listed in Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment, and we cite Ivy’s testimony only insofar as it concerns those two counts. 5 claimed that she never previously had been a prostitute. Id. But she had heard Williams hit Erika, and she testified, “I didn’t feel like I had many options but to do what he said.” Id. At that time, she provided Facebook photos of herself for use in internet advertisements. Id. at 183. Talia stated that she did not abandon her situation or call her mother for a variety of reasons: she was somewhere she never had been before; she did not know the people around her; she had been forced to leave someone’s home for the second time and did not know where to go or what to do; she felt ashamed; and she did not want to tell her mother in Atlanta “like a thousand miles away” that she was in her situation. Id. at 132. She “just felt stuck.” Id. She testified that she “didn’t feel fully that it was [her] choice at the time” that she made the decision to become a prostitute. Id. at 191. Talia worked for Williams for two or three months. Id. at 132. During that time, Williams took her and other women to a number of places in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. so that they could work as prostitutes. Id. at 133-34. In Philadelphia they stayed in a crack house, which, at least at the outset, was in a filthy condition. Id. at 136. The women found clients through postings on Backpage, a website popular for solicitation, and by walking the streets. Id. at 135. Talia often created website advertisements and listed her own phone number on them. Id. at 138-42. Erika and she purchased prepaid cards with which to buy the advertisements. Id. at 144. When Talia received a call responding to an advertisement, she would tell another woman whom Williams controlled that there was a potential “date” on the phone. Id. at 188. Talia averaged 5-10 “dates” with clients each day, while Erika had 1-10 per day, 6 and Ivy averaged 8-9 “dates” per day. Id. at 145, 268, 353. Talia testified that Williams would be in close proximity during these “dates” and stay with them all day, although Erika denied that he did so. Id. at 133, 148, 312. Talia, Erika, and Ivy explained Williams’s rules. Id. at 132-33, 273, 352-53. Talia and Erika originally had a quota of $1000 per day, which Williams reduced to $700 or $750. Id. at 147, 273. Williams set Ivy’s quota at about $500. Id. at 353. Ivy stated that she was told that she could accept only certain prices for her services and Williams directed her not to get into a car with younger men. Id. at 352. All three women testified that Williams required them to give him the money that they received from prostitution, although Talia stated that Williams allowed them to keep some money for food purchases and she acknowledged that he purchased other items for her at times. Id. at 133, 145-46, 210, 269. When they were on “dates” with clients, they could not stay for longer than 1520 minutes without notifying Williams that they would receive additional payment for their longer stay. Id. at 133; see id. at 352-53. If they failed to update Williams, Talia testified that he would call to ask where they were and what they were doing. Id. at 146. The women needed to shower immediately upon return from a “date” and “wash the streets off.” Id. at 133. The longest time that Erika worked continuously was around 18 hours, while Ivy’s longest period of working without a break was 15 hours. Id. at 269, 354. But Talia once worked 25 hours straight. Id. at 147. Williams did not give them regular time off from work, but he would not send them out to work if he was in a good mood. Id. at 147. 7 Talia and Erika witnessed Williams’s violent behavior towards the women who worked for him. Talia testified that when she first was with Williams she heard him hit Erika and that she saw Williams hit Erika at least once every two weeks thereafter. Id. at 150. Talia stated that Williams would punch Erika in the face and middle of the chest with a closed fist when she “talked back.” Id. at 150-51. Erika also testified that she saw Williams engaging in other acts of violence. Id. at 255-56. She testified that she watched him slap two different women. Id. at 255. Erika also observed Williams slap, punch, and kick another woman under his control named Stevi. Id. at 258. He sent Talia and Erika out to work the streets after beating Stevi in front of them. Id. The women detailed Williams’s violence against them. Talia testified about a time when she made a comment to one of Williams’s associates and Williams interjected that he would “punch the glasses like off of [her] face for talking to him.” Id. at 159. Ivy acknowledged that Williams punched her in the stomach in front of Talia. Id. at 357. Talia claimed that Williams used violence and threats as “his main mode of, you know, trying to keep [them] together, doing what he told [them] to do.” Id. at 158. Of all the women under his control, Williams most frequently was violent toward Erika, id. at 259. In this regard, Ivy and Erika agreed that Erika bore the brunt of Williams’s violence. Id. at 259, 363. Erika explained that Williams sometimes was violent toward her on a weekly basis, but that at other times he could go for months without subjecting her to violent acts. Id. at 250. Williams would slap her, punch her in the ribs and face with his fist, kick her, and shove her, sometimes in front of the other women working for him. Id. at 250-54. Ivy watched Williams punch Erika in the face 8 and stomach and grab her by her neck and head. Id. at 350-51. She said that she witnessed that type of violence about ten times, and that she noticed that Erika had swollen lips, a black eye, and bruises, and was missing teeth multiple times after those incidents. Id. at 362. At times, Williams would send Erika out to engage in prostitution after those beatings. Id. at 250-54, 363. Erika’s mother testified that Williams told her that he had to “physically beat [Erika] or hit her to get her straight” because she almost had “gotten them both in trouble.” Furthermore, Erika’s mother detailed the black eyes and bruises she had seen on Erika’s body while Erika was dating Williams. Id. at 71-72. Another time, he gave Erika a deep cut on her arm with hair clippers because he attributed the incarceration of a friend of his to her actions. Id. at 252-53. In a recorded call offered as evidence, Williams told Erika, “I got to come over there and put a slave trader over top of you to do anything.” Id. at 275. Erika testified that this meant he was going to send one of his friends to be with her. Id. Talia described a time when Williams acted violently toward Erika, Talia, and Stevi after the women told Williams about a prospective client who was acting strangely. Id. at 152. They mentioned to Williams that the prospective client was “acting like kind of boyfriend-ish.” Id. In response Williams lined up Erika and Talia next to each other in a hallway and yelled at them, asking about the man. Id. Williams hit Erika, hit Talia in the face three times, and pushed Talia against the wall. Id. at 153-56. He brought the women into a downstairs room, where he punched Stevi in the face and body, stomped on her, kicked her, and pulled her by the hair to throw her head into the edge of the door. Id. Williams then hit Erika right below the sternum, and she fell to the ground gasping for 9 breath. Id. at 153. This incident lasted 10-15 minutes, and immediately afterward Williams sent the women back outside to continue working on the streets. Id. at 154. Ivy and Erika detailed another incident in which Williams pulled a phone cord out of the wall and used it to whip Ivy while she was wearing a towel. Id. at 256, 358. Erika was in the room at that time but she turned her head to avoid seeing it happen. Id. at 256. She heard the sound of the cord hitting Ivy, heard Ivy screaming, and witnessed Ivy crying afterward. Id. at 257. Ivy asserted that Williams hit her with the cord because she had been kidnapped and when she returned he told her that she would “have to pay for it.” Id. at 358. Ivy testified that a few days after she returned from the kidnapping, he told her that “he would beat [her] with a phone cord, and that’s exactly what he did.” Id. Ivy showed the jury many marks on her body from the incident. Id. at 361. One of those marks was five inches long, while another on her torso had been “split open” and looked as if it was still swollen. Id. at 361. Erika denied during her second day of testimony that this incident had happened. Id. at 314. Williams was incarcerated in December 2011. Id. at 161. In telephone calls from jail, Williams continued to direct the women’s work and told them to meet their quotas. Id. at 165-66. Talia and Erika continued working for him while he was incarcerated on an unrelated charge, helped him find a defense lawyer, and used the money from their acts of prostitution to meet his bail. Id. at 163, 214, 273. Talia also visited him and told him that she loved him. Id. at 163. Williams promised Talia to take her to Las Vegas once he was released, although he never did so. Id. at 167. Talia told him that she 10 wanted to leave while he was incarcerated but stated that “[h]e kind of coerced [her] not to,” telling her that she “would lose [her] protection.” Id. at 168. While Williams was incarcerated, the police questioned Talia and Erika. Id. at 162. The women told the police that Williams was Erika’s boyfriend and declined to mention that he was physically abusive. Id. at 162, 272. Talia lied to the police about whether he was forcing her to commit acts of prostitution and whether she was giving him money. Id. at 167, 216. She testified that she lied to the police because, “when [she] first got there, [she] felt like [she] didn’t have anywhere to go, and at this point [she] really didn’t feel like [she] had anywhere to go.” Id. at 162. She stated that “[a]t that point [she] felt like the consequences of ratting out [Williams] and then getting out later would be worse than lying to the police.” Id. After Williams was released from jail, he hit Talia three times in the face. Id. at 205. He was reincarcerated in January 2012, and Talia continued to try to help him to get released. Id. at 217-18. Talia testified that when Williams told her that he was going to be released, she was happy about it. Id. at 220. Talia was arrested twice for prostitution while working for Williams. Id. at 206. She eventually left Williams when her mother came to Philadelphia for Talia’s court date on a prostitution charge. Id. at 168-70. She went home with her mother and never worked for Williams again. Id. at 170. Talia testified that she finally decided to leave because her mother and sister were present and she knew it was her chance to do so. Id. at 175. She asserted that she had wanted to leave before, but “was scared and didn’t for a lot of reasons.” Id. She later talked on the phone to Williams, who told her he still loved 11 her and asked her why she left. Id. at 170. After that, Williams sent Talia a text message telling her he loved her, wanted her to return, and would send her money. Id. at 172. On cross-examination, Erika acknowledged that she still loved Williams, had his name in her phone as “Sexy,” and was excited for him to be released from jail. Id. at 292, 306. She said that she engaged in prostitution because of her love for Williams and her desire to pay him. Id. at 292. She said that their relationship was an “interchange of benefits” and that Williams’s violent conduct did not motivate her to engage in prostitution. Id. at 293, 299. She claimed that she had testified earlier that Williams hit her and Talia because the federal government had threatened her. Id. at 308, 317. She denied that Williams ever used force, threats of force, or coercion to induce her to commit commercial sex acts. Id. at 308. She also said that she was not insecure around Williams and that he never had placed her in danger or caused her serious harm. Id. at 308. Williams testified at the trial. In his version of events, the women asked him to get involved with him in their acts of prostitution. Id. at 507. He apologized for accepting money from the women, but contended that he was their security and that they enjoyed the “fun” they had with him. Id. at 455-58, 508. Williams claimed that the women cared for him. Id. at 459. He also contradicted their testimony that they received little from him, stating that the “women eat big lobsters. They wear Louis Vuitton shoes. They buy bags that cost $1,000.” Id. at 453. Williams testified that he is “pushy” and has “a big mouth” but does not “bite at all” and denied that he had ever hit, punched, shoved, or kicked the women. Id. at 456, 492. Williams claimed that he never had met 12 Ivy, asserting that he did not “know [Ivy] from a can of water” or “a can of beans.” Id. at 451, 480. When commenting on recorded evidence in which he sounded angry, he acknowledged that he sounded “hurtful” but explained that he was like a teacher with an out-of-control classroom: he needed to be forceful because he was responsible for the women and they would have gotten hurt without his guidance. Id. at 460. He claimed that his testimony differed from the women’s because they “were under pressure from the government” to lie. Id. at 485. Williams also contended that the federal government had threatened Erika and that he intended in his letter to her to encourage her to testify truthfully. Id. at 463-64. After considering the testimony that we partially, but nevertheless at great length, have described, the jury found Williams guilty on all three counts. Id. at 788-91.