Man headed to prison for pimping teens
Moments before a Broward man was sentenced to more than 16.5 years in federal prison for sex-trafficking two teenage girls, he told a federal judge he had nothing to say.
Pressed again, Taylor Jordan Wardlow, 24, of Davie, told the judge he wasn’t “the kind of person who’s going to tell you what you want to hear.”
“I’m not saying I don’t accept responsibility but I’m the one doing the time … Am I sorry for what I did? Yes, I can’t take back what happened … This is a life lesson for me. I don’t know what you want me to say,” Wardlow
said in a monotone.
Jurors found Wardlow guilty of pimping the girls, ages 15 and 16, to clients at his Palm Trace Landings apartment and South Florida motels. He was convicted of two counts of sex-trafficking a minor and one count each of producing and possessing child pornography for taking inappropriate photographs of one of the girls.
The 16-year-old testified Wardlow threatened to kill her and told her to write her “last will and testament” after she locked herself in a bathroom and told him she wanted to stop having sex with clients. Wardlow told her “he would hunt her down and kill her” if she told anyone what he did, she said.
She wrote her final wishes in a purple composition notebook before she managed to escape from Wardlow.
Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Huck told Wardlow he was struck by his obvious lack of any remorse during Wardlow’s trial and sentencing in federal court in Miami on Monday.
“You are not sorry about the victims, I’m convinced about that,” the judge said. “I find it unacceptable, let me just put it that way, that someone has so little concern for anybody other than himself.”
Wardlow’s short speech about how his crimes affected him was “just a reflection of who he is,” the judge said: “I think he wants to do what he darn well pleases.”
Wardlow faced a minimum of 15 years in federal prison. Huck sentenced him to 16 years and eight months, followed by two years of house arrest and 15 years of supervised release. The judge also ordered Wardlow to complete 1,400 hours of community service for the first couple of years after he gets out of prison, followed by 1,000 hours per year if he is unemployed and fewer if he gets a job. He must also register as a sex offender and receive sex offender treatment.
Wardlow’s defense was not allowed to tell jurors that both girls had prostituted themselves before they met him.
But Wardlow’s public defender Stewart Abrams and Wardlow’s father, Christopher Wardlow, who said most of his family works in law enforcement, told the judge they thought the girls’ histories were relevant.
They said Wardlow had not lured either one into the sex industry, though prosecutors said he urged them on, set their rates, bought condoms and pre-paid credit cards for them and helped them post ads on Backpage.com. Both girls were runaways, and Wardlow acted as their pimp for about three weeks in January and February 2015.
The older girl testified Wardlow forced her to have sex with him many times “and if she refused he would become physically violent with her. She recalled that on one occasion when she refused to have sex with him, he choked her around the neck until she blacked out,” prosecutor Catherine Koontz said.
The 16-year-old girl told the FBI and Davie police she contacted “family friend” Wardlow after she ran away from a group home in Miami. Wardlow asked her if she wanted to make money to help her mother, then posted cell phone photos of her online.
Wardlow decided how much she should charge for various sexual acts. She said he took a percentage of her earnings in the beginning but later took all the money she made. The other girl ran away from home.
Wardlow worked as a telemarketer and restaurant cook and was studying electrical engineering when he was arrested. He was on drug offender probation for state charges of possessing cocaine and heroin in Monroe County when federal authorities arrested him.