The Miami Herald reports on a man who used rape and torture to enslave and traffic a 16 year old girl and and adult woman. According to The Herald, the man was identified as Julius Mozie and used Miami Springs and Hialeah hotels to traffic the women.
Read the Press Release from the United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida:
South Florida Sex Trafficker Sentenced to 25 Years’ Imprisonment
Miami, Florida – A Miami man who forced a woman and a 16-year-old girl into selling themselves for sex was sentenced today in Miami, Florida to 25 years’ imprisonment.
According to court documents, Julius Dwight Mozie met the minor after she had run away from home. Mozie coerced the minor into taking lewd photographs and then subsequently posted the photographs on a website to advertise the minor victim for commercial sex acts. Then, Mozie forced the minor to perform commercial sex acts. Around the same time, Mozie also forced an adult victim to perform commercial sex acts for several months. If the victims failed to comply with Mozie’s instructions, he would subject them to his “Torture Chamber” to punish them. In the “Torture Chamber,” Mozie handcuffed, beat, raped, and waterboarded his victims. He also urinated and defecated on them.
United States Senior District Court Judge Beth Bloom imposed the 25-year sentence, which also included a term of 15 years of supervised release following incarceration.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Divisions Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
Juan Antonio Gonzalez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Miami; Anthony Salisbury, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Miami Field Office; W. Howard Harrison, Chief of Plantation Police Department; and George A. Perez, Interim Director of the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) announced the sentence.
This case was investigated by the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Human Trafficking Task Force, in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations, Plantation Police Department, MDPD’s Human Trafficking Squad, the South Florida Human Trafficking Task Force, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lacee Monk and Manolo Reboso.
To report suspected human trafficking or to obtain resources for victims, please call 1-888-373-7888; text “BeFree” (233733), or live chat at HumanTraffickingHotline.org. The toll-free phone, SMS text lines, and online chat function are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Help is available in English, Spanish, Creole, or in more than 200 additional languages. The National Hotline is not managed by law enforcement, immigration or an investigative agency. Correspondence with the National Hotline is confidential and you may request assistance or report a tip anonymously.
To learn more about the National Resource Hotline visit www.humantraffickinghotline.org. To learn more about the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to combat human trafficking visit www.justice.gov/humantrafficking.
Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov, under case no. 20-cr-20087.
