A Central Florida bail bondsman accused of coercing women into having sex with him in exchange for getting them out of jail pleaded no contest Monday to a racketeering charge, court records show.<\/p>\n
Russell \u201cBruce\u201d Moncrief, owner of Moncrief Bail Bonds, was arrested in October 2024 on racketeering and human trafficking charges after a years-long police investigation found he created a system where he exploited desperate women who\u2019d seek him out because of his well-known reputation in jails.<\/p>\n
The five human trafficking charges Moncrief was facing were dropped as part of the plea deal, according to Feller Law, the Lake Mary-based firm representing him. It was filed the same day jury selection in his scheduled trial was supposed to begin.<\/p>\n
He will be sentenced in January to 34-and-a-half months in prison, along with time served for the nearly 7 months he already spent in jail. He will also complete 6 years of probation, during which he will complete a sex offender evaluation, be prohibited from viewing pornography and follow a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., the law firm said.<\/p>\n
Feller Law also said Moncrief must pay $80,000 in restitution to his victims. Lisa Haba, an attorney representing two of the victims, said her clients were are \u201cgrateful\u201d to prosecutors and \u201cthrilled that Bruce Moncrief is finally being adjudicated guilty and held accountable for his crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The probe into Moncrief, who had offices in Orange, Osceola, Brevard and Pinellas counties, was led by the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, a task force made up of several local law enforcement agencies that combats organized crime, narcotics and vice in Orange and Osceola counties.<\/p>\n
A partially blacked out 173-page report from MBI said jailed women would call Moncrief after receiving his personal phone number from other inmates and use various code phrases such as washing his car, cleaning his house and licking his eyebrows to refer to sexual acts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll take all the paint off of those doors. Please get me out of here,\u201d a transcript from one phone call to Moncrief from the Brevard County Jail said. \u201cPlease, I\u2019m begging you, you\u2019ve never left me in here, you always been there for me . . . I will take all the paint off those doors, I got you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report said Moncrief did not charge the women his typical fee for posting bail on their behalf, but once they were released they\u2019d become his \u201csex slave\u201d until he deemed their debt satisfied.<\/p>\n
The agency wiretapped Moncrief\u2019s phone and placed tracking and listening devices in his Ford F-150 truck, surveilling him at his various residences and while he drove around the state to meet with women. The report includes surveillance photos of several meetings.<\/p>\n
In addition to the wiretapping, MBI reviewed hundreds of calls made in 2019 alone to Moncrief\u2019s personal cellphone from inside the Orange County jail by female inmates prior to the investigation.<\/p>\n
The report said one of the victims, identified as \u201cV7,\u201d told MBI that Moncrief preyed on women described as \u201cwilling, vulnerable and desperate,\u201d especially drug addicts. Many were also involved in prostitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody has their breaking point, and it\u2019s kind of just something we always just wanted every girl to know there is an option,\u201d she told investigators. \u201cYou may not have family, you may not have money, but you do have some eyebrows that you can lick, and that\u2019s with Bruce.<\/p>\n
\u201c90% of the girls in there are just trying to get back out to that needle, just trying to get back out to that fix, and he definitely monopolizes off that.\u201d<\/p>\n
V7 said she contacted Moncrief at the request of another prostitute in order to bond her out. She joined the other woman in a sexual encounter with him, although she didn\u2019t want to, because she was afraid Moncrief would revoke the other woman\u2019s bond if she refused. She told MBI the two had sex with Moncrief four more times that week.<\/p>\n
Some women said he induced pimps to supply their prostitutes to him in order to pay off the pimp\u2019s own bond or that of other prostitutes. One victim, identified as \u201cV3\u201d in the report, said she was 17 when her pimp made her have sex with Moncrief to pay off another prostitute\u2019s bond.<\/p>\n
V3 said she has had sex with Moncrief nine or 10 times \u2014 two or three when she was still 17. She told MBI she once had sex with him in the parking lot of the Orange County jail after her release because her pimp had already arrived to pick her up.<\/p>\n
Another victim, identified as \u201cV6\u201d in the report, told MBI she had sex with Moncrief more than once in exchange for bonding out and on several occasions had \u201cprostitution dates\u201d with him \u2014 including a time he saw her on the streets. They\u2019d have sex in his truck, including in the parking lot of the Florida Mall in Orlando.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Central Florida bail bondsman accused of coercing women into having sex with him in exchange for getting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,28,2008,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,1976,1014,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-230462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-lake-mary","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-orlando","16":"tag-orlando-headlines","17":"tag-orlando-news","18":"tag-osceola-county","19":"tag-seminole-county","20":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230462","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=230462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}