WASHINGTON, July 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A Nevada man has been
 sentenced to life without parole in federal prison for transporting two
 minors across state lines to work as prostitutes after he previously had
 been convicted of a child exploitation crime, Assistant Attorney General
 Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney George S.
 Cardona of the Central District of California announced today.
     Juan Rico Doss of Reno, Nev., received the mandatory sentence of life
 in prison yesterday from U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson of the
 Central District of California.
     On June 26, 2006, a jury in federal court in Riverside, Calif.,
 determined that Doss was guilty of two counts of sex trafficking of
 children, three counts of transporting minors into prostitution, one count
 of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of children and transporting minors
 into prostitution, and two counts of witness tampering.
     The evidence at trial showed that during the first two weeks of May
 2005, Doss conspired with his wife, Jacquay Quinn Ford, to transport two
 girls across state lines to work as prostitutes. Doss and Ford transported
 the victims -- one 14 and one 16 -- from Nevada to work as prostitutes in
 Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and Oakland. Doss recruited and
 transported the 16-year-old victim by the use of force.
     At an earlier trial of Doss in April 2006, a mistrial was declared
 after the 14-year-old victim refused to testify against Doss. Investigators
 determined that Doss had coerced the victim and had convinced her to not
 testify, which led to the witness tampering counts in the second trial.
     "Juan Rico Doss stole the freedom of his young female victims when he
 recruited them and transported them across state lines for prostitution,
 sometimes through the use of force. Now he will spend the rest of his life
 in prison," said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. "The life sentence in
 this case is the result of the cooperative effort of federal prosecutors,
 the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department, and is part of our ongoing
 effort to prevent and prosecute the sexual exploitation of child victims."
     Prior to the first trial, Doss's wife pleaded guilty to one count of
 conspiracy for her role in this offense and cooperated with the government.
 Ford testified against her husband at the second trial and was recently
 sentenced to 15 months in prison.
     Doss was sentenced to a mandatory statutory term of life in prison
 pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 3559(e), which calls for mandatory life
 imprisonment for repeated sex offenses against children. On Nov. 1, 2006,
 Judge Larson found that Doss's previous conviction in the State of Nevada
 on charges of pandering of minors for the purpose of prostitution qualified
 as a prior sex offense under this statute. Ford is one of the first in the
 nation to receive the mandatory life sentence pursuant to Section 3559(e).
     The case against Doss and Ford was investigated by the Federal Bureau
 of Investigation, which received the case from the Los Angeles Police
 Department. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the
 Central District of California and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity
 Section of the Department of Justice. This case is part of the Innocence
 Lost Initiative, a cooperative effort between the FBI, the Criminal
 Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and the National
 Center for Missing and Exploited Children to prevent and prosecute child
 prostitution.
 
 

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice