TAMPA, FL \u2014 A Hillsborough County man was recently handed a 120-year prison sentence for human trafficking and other charges, according to a news release from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier\u2019s office. <\/p>\n
Marquett James, 50, will serve his incarceration in the Florida Department of Correction over 90 years with some terms running concurrently. <\/p>\n
Following a jury trial in November, James was convicted of two counts of human trafficking, one count of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to commit racketeering. He was sentenced on Friday. <\/p>\n
\u201cCrimes of this nature cause life-long harm and must be met with punishments that reflect their severity. In Florida, there will be no leniency for sexual predators and human traffickers,\u201d Uthmeier said. <\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security began investigating James in May 2021 after a cyber tip was submitted to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. <\/p>\n
Between 2012 and 2020, James targeted young women by initiating romantic relationships and later coercing them into commercial sex acts, Uthmeier\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
He forced both victims into prostitutions, kept all profits, and subjected them to ongoing physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. <\/p>\n
In one case, James threatened to release pornographic material he produced of the victim to maintain control, the attorney general\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n
Investigators estimate that James profited in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from each victim. One victim became homeless as a result of James\u2019 abuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, FL \u2014 A Hillsborough County man was recently handed a 120-year prison sentence for human trafficking and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-151805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}