Latin King member sentenced to 31 years for sex-trafficking women in Miami area
A Miami man who belonged to the notorious Latin Kings gang was sentenced Wednesday to 31 years in prison after being convicted of forcing women to have commercial sex and beating them if they didn’t obey his orders.
Jason Wagner, aka
“King Ace,” was found guilty of sex-trafficking two women by a Miami federal jury in October. He was acquitted of two related counts involving a third woman and kidnapping.
Wagner, 41, who was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga, was accused of sex-trafficking both adult and underage women in the Miami area for years.
“As established at trial, the defendant is a manipulative and violent pimp who has preyed upon vulnerable woman and girls since as early as 2003 for his own sexual gratification and financial gain,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo, noting that he had a prior criminal conviction for a similar offense. They recommended a 40-year sentence for Wagner.
NOTE PASSED AT PHARMACY
Wagner’s membership in the Latin Kings, which was founded as a Hispanic street gang in Chicago decades ago, was discovered by federal investigators. But the gang didn’t appear to play a role in his sex-trafficking crime, according to court records.
Wagner was arrested in
March 2022 after one of his victims tossed a note to a customer at a Walgreen’s pharmacy, accusing him of forcing her into prostitution. In the note, the victim asked the customer to call the police.
In multiple interviews, the victim told investigators that starting in June 2021, “Wagner was holding her against her will at a house located in Miami, Florida, and was forcing her to engage in commercial sex acts for money,” according to a complaint and affidavit written by a Homeland Security Investigations agent.
The victim said Wagner posted advertisements on websites known for prostitution. She told investigators that Wagner told her to charge clients at least $500 and made her give him all of the money, the affidavit said.
Wagner kept her locked up in the Miami house, where she met with clients, the victim told investigators.
“The victim stated that if she did not make the amount of money that Wagner required her to make, he would physically batter [her] by, among other things, punching her in the head and choking her,” according to the affidavit, filed by lead prosecutor Lacee Elizabeth Monk.
She said “Wagner told her to keep her phone on during the commercial sex act so that he could listen to what she was doing with a client,” the affidavit stated. She “did not want to do so, but eventually complied and picked up Wagner’s phone calls during the commercial sex transaction.”
When Wagner returned to the house, she said, he hit her “with a closed first in the head and choked her.”
Monk and fellow federal prosecutor Jessica Obenauf said that after Wagner’s arrest, he repeatedly asked the woman to drop the charges and refuse to testify. In addition to his sex-trafficking conviction, he was also found guilty of obstructing the federal investigation.