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A 35-year-old man from Washington, Dominique Terrel Gonzales, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for sex trafficking a minor.
He violently forced four women and one underage teenager into prostitution across state lines over a four-year period.
Gonzales was ordered by U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle to be on supervised release for 15 years following his 11-year prison term, the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Washington said in a statement Monday.
He has been in federal custody since August 2020 when he was arrested at his apartment in Vancouver, Wash., for illegally possessing firearms after he was previously convicted of a felony and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the attorney's office wrote.
"Today's sentencing is a powerful reminder that those who prey on vulnerable children through violence and exploitation will be held fully accountable," Matthew Murphy, acting Special Agent in Charge of HSI Seattle, said in the statement.
A 17-year-old girl was in the Vancouver apartment when Gonzales was arrested in 2020, according to court documents. He had trafficked her across state lines from Vancouver, Wash., to Portland in Uber and Lyft rides to perform sex acts, then turn over profits to him.
Gonzales knew the girl was under 18 and only allowed her to communicate with him on a flip phone or via Signal, an encrypted messaging app.
Between 2016 and 2020, Gonzales also trafficked four adult women across state lines for commercial sex acts.
He used residences in Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, Wash., and rental homes on the East Coast, as locations to prostitute the young women, the attorney's office said.
"He preyed upon teenagers and young women who were insecure and estranged from their families," said acting U.S. attorney Teal Luthy Miller in the statement.
Gonzales lured one woman away from her home in Idaho before forcing her to engage in prostitution, the attorney's office said. He met many of the women on dating apps, promising them a relationship before using threats and violence to force them to perform sex acts with strangers on "dates."
"To maintain control over his victims, Gonzales physically beat them, verbally assaulted them, and forced them to install tracking programs on their cellphones so that he could follow their every move," Miller continued. "He used whatever means necessary to ensure that his victims engaged in prostitution to fund his luxurious lifestyle."
Gonzales will be made to pay restitution to the victims, the amount of which will be determined at a hearing scheduled for August.
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