{"id":401887,"date":"2026-07-17T05:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/401887\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T05:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:54:12","slug":"oakland-man-pleads-guilty-to-trafficking-beating-women-on-the-blade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/401887\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland man pleads guilty to trafficking, beating women on \u2018the Blade’"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Oakland man pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a human-trafficking conspiracy<\/a> in which women were forced to engage in commercial sex<\/a> and beaten when they disobeyed instructions or withheld money, federal prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Michael Simon, 37, admitted conspiring with others to recruit, transport, harbor and advertise women for sex from June 2023 through September 2025, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.<\/p>\n

The operation took place along Oakland’s International Boulevard, a corridor known as “the Blade<\/a>,” and at other locations, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Simon and his co-conspirators rented hotel rooms in Oakland where women were housed and directed to meet customers, according to prosecutors. They also posted online advertisements and used cell phones to communicate with the women and prospective customers.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Simon instructed at least two women by text message to report to specific hotel rooms, post advertisements and engage in commercial sex.<\/p>\n

The women were not allowed to set their own hours, fees or locations and could not keep the money they received, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

Simon admitted to assaulting women, including hitting them in the head and face, when they refused to work or failed to hand over money.<\/p>\n

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit human trafficking by force, fraud or coercion.<\/p>\n

Simon is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 1 by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. He faces a statutory maximum sentence of life in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, though the judge will determine the sentence after considering federal guidelines and other factors.<\/p>\n

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Oakland Police Department.<\/p>\n

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This article originally published at Oakland man pleads guilty to trafficking, beating women on ‘the Blade’<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Oakland man pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a human-trafficking conspiracy in which women were forced to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[84754,7334,3650,44618,161256,143,145,144,2452],"class_list":["post-401887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-commercial-sex","tag-federal-prosecutors","tag-human-trafficking","tag-international-boulevard","tag-michael-simon","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oakland-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}