California Gang Members, Associates, Hotel Indicted on Prostitution-Related Racketeering Charges

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SAN DIEGO, CA—United States Attorney Laura E Duffy announced today the unsealing of an indictment charging 38 individuals and one Limited Liability Company (LLC) with conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity (RICO). Specifically, the defendants are charged with using a corrupt enterprise to conduct a pattern of racketeering activity, namely, prostitution of minors and adults, use of facilities of interstate commerce to promote prostitution, drug trafficking, and other gang-related crimes. The charged racketeering activity stems from an extensive, 18 month, multi-agency gang investigation entitled Operation Vice Grip in Oceanside, California and surrounding North County areas. In addition to the criminal charges, the indictment also alleges the criminal forfeiture of the Oceanside Travelodge hotel.

According to the indictment, the defendants are charged as members, associates, and facilitators of the Oceanside Crip enterprise (“Oceanside Crips”) composed of various Crip gang “sets,” including the “Insane Crip Gang,” “Deep Valley Crips” and “Crook, Mob, Gangsters.” All three Crip sets are based primarily in Oceanside, and over the last several years have cooperated and interacted to the point that traditional gang distinctions between them have broken down. Specifically, the indictment alleges that since 2005, members of the Oceanside Crip Enterprise engaged in multiple racketeering acts in furtherance of the enterprise, including, among other things, the sex trafficking of minors and adults; attempted murder; kidnapping; extortion; and the distribution of controlled substances. The enterprise members also worked together to protect, promote, and expand their territory against rival gangs. The indictment alleges that senior members of the Oceanside Crips enterprise controlled and directed the activities of more junior members, even from prison.

The indictment further alleges that defendants identified as “pimps” (a person who befriends, recruits, trains, and/or panders a person for prostitution) and “bottoms” (a pimp’s most trusted/senior prostitute) promoted and managed prostitution activities in San Diego County, California, and elsewhere. As set out in the indictment, the Oceanside Crips enterprise has, in recent years, increasingly focused its for-profit criminal activity on pimping and prostituting adult and juvenile females in Oceanside, California, and elsewhere within northern San Diego County and throughout the United States. To this end, as described in the indictment, gang-controlled prostitution spawned a “pimping” subculture, known as “The Game,” which operates under a set of strictly observed rules, with consequences for individuals who violate them—including, but not limited to, physical abuse and/or public humiliation. As alleged in the indictment, the majority of the defendants named in the indictment collaborated with one another as members, associates, and facilitators of the enterprise to carry out prostitution activities, primarily in and around low-cost motels in North County, including the Oceanside Travelodge.

As detailed in the indictment, Oceanside Crips Enterprise members and associates also worked together to recruit new prostitutes. Recruitment efforts generally focused on vulnerable juvenile females who were runaways or from broken homes. Furthermore, as detailed in the indictment, Enterprise “pimps” and “bottoms” conducted extensive online recruitment via various social networking websites, including MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. As alleged, upon recruiting prostitutes, enterprise “pimps” routinely provided them with controlled substances and alcohol in order to manipulate their loyalty and increase productivity as related to prostitution.