Opinion ID: 68547
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plea and Offense Conduct

Text: Pursuant to a plea agreement, Monsalve pled guilty to Counts 1 and 5 to 11. Monsalve admitted that he was guilty of Objects 2 through 4 of the Count 1 conspiracy charge. However, Monsalve specifically did not plead guilty to Object 1, which charged him with transporting, recruiting, and harboring a person while knowing that force, fraud, and coercion would be used to cause that person to engage in prostitution. Monsalve’s presentence investigation report (“PSI”) detailed his offense conduct. In 2005, Monsalve and others began smuggling women into the United States and making them work as prostitutes until they paid off their smuggling 3 fees. Monsalve paid someone in Guatemala to recruit women to the United States to work as prostitutes. Monsalve also used a contact in Costa Rica, who recruited Colombian women for Monsalve and provided fraudulent passports and identification cards. Most of the women knew they would work as prostitutes in the United States, but Victims 1 and 2 were promised legitimate work. Monsalve charged the Guatemalan women a $15,000 to $16,000 smuggling fee and the Colombian women a $20,000 smuggling fee.1 The women were expected to work six to seven days a week and have sex with approximately 20 to 25 men a night. Monsalve typically charged customers $30 for 15 minutes of sex. Monsalve and his group kept all of the proceeds and applied $15 of each transaction to that woman’s smuggling debt. After a woman worked off her smuggling debt, which generally took three to four months, the woman could continue to work as a prostitute and keep $15 from each transaction. Monsalve ran the daily operation of the conspiracy, which operated out of Tampa, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee, Florida. Each city had its own manager, each of whom was indicted as a codefendant. The women rotated among cities on a weekly basis. Monsalve and his codefendants provided residences for the women, delivered them to customers, and transported them from city to city. 1 Testimony at Monsalve’s sentencing hearing indicated that these smuggling fees were significantly higher than average. 4 Victims 1 and 2 were recruited from Guatemala and, unlike most of the other women recruited, were promised high-paying, legitimate jobs in the United States and assistance in becoming United States citizens. After being smuggled into the United States and transported to Tallahassee, the women were picked up by Jorge Melchor, one of Monsalve’s codefendants.2 Melchor told Victims 1 and 2 that their job was to have sex with men in order to repay their debts and that they should have been told that in Guatemala. On the day they arrived in Tallahassee, Melchor drove Victims 1 and 2 to shop for clothes and then to various residences where they had sex with numerous men. The next day, Melchor received a call from Monsalve. Melchor told Monsalve that Victims 1 and 2 did not want to have sex with more men. Monsalve talked to Victims 1 and 2 and insisted that they had to go back to work. Melchor threatened the women that, if they attempted to flee, he would find them and bring them back and that, if they went to the police, they would be deported. Victim 2 had sex with more men later that day. The following day, Victims 1 and 2 fled from the Tallahassee house.