California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris on Wednesday announced that her office has filed six felony charges against Andrew Jordan, 36, in Los Angeles County Superior Court for allegedly committing human trafficking, pimping, pandering, domestic violence, assault and a racially motivated hate crime. Jordan was held to answer on these charges on Feb. 3, 2016, and he pled not guilty as charged.
“Human trafficking dehumanizes victims and will not be tolerated in California,” Harris said. “We must continue to support victims of human trafficking and help them seek justice. I thank our California Department of Justice attorneys and Special Agents, as well as the Long Beach Police Department (LBPD), Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the Long Beach City Prosecutor’s Office for their commitment to fighting human trafficking.”
On Aug. 26, 2015, detectives from the LBPD’s vice investigations and gang-enforcement sections, with the assistance of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Custody Investigative Services, Operation Safe Jails, and the Los Angeles Human Exploitation and Trafficking Task Force, identified a 23-year-old human trafficking victim who was in custody on a prostitution charge.
At Jordan’s preliminary hearing on Feb. 3, 2016, the victim testified that she was forced by the defendant to perform commercial sex acts with other men. She said Jordan drove her to an area of Los Angeles with which she was unfamiliar and forced her to solicit sex acts from cars passing by.
He monitored her whereabouts and ordered her to send him text messages every time she was picked up and every time she completed an act. He collected the money in between and forced her to stay out until she met a quota that the defendant set. She described how the defendant beat her severely when she broke his rules and called her racially degrading slurs to further punish and control her. He allegedly coerced her into getting a tattoo of his name on her wrist. The defendant also controlled all of her personal belongings, according to her testimony. She also testified that she was scared to run away as he kept tabs on her by constantly driving up and down the street. It was not until she was in custody that she was able to tell an officer that she was being abused.
The defendant has remained in custody since his September 2015 arrest. The next court date is a pre-trial conference on April 27, 2016, and jury trial is set for May 19, 2016.
“This case is another great example of how our partnerships with other law-enforcement agencies and nonprofit victim advocacy groups protect and support victims of human trafficking,” said Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna. “We commend the proactive work of our detectives and will continue to dedicate resources in an effort to combat these violent acts and bring those responsible to justice.”
Long Beach City Prosecutor Doug Haubert commended the LBPD, the Sheriff’s Department and the Attorney General’s Office for their work to apprehend and file charges on Jordan.
“Our office is proud to partner with these agencies to stop human trafficking and assist the survivors,” Haubert said.
Earlier this month, Harris announced her sponsorship of Assembly Bill 1731 by Assembly Speaker Emeritus Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) to combat human trafficking. The bill creates the Statewide Interagency Human Trafficking Task Force, which would be a permanent collaborative entity led by the California Department of Justice in partnership with other government agencies. In addition to her sponsorship of AB 1731, Harris also announced her support for AB 1730 by Speaker Emeritus Atkins, a bill to establish housing programs that provide trauma-informed mental health services for child sex trafficking victims.
Last year, the Office of the Attorney General released a resource guide to help companies comply with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act. The law requires large retailers and manufacturers doing business in California to disclose on their websites their “efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from [their] direct supply chain for tangible goods offered for sale.”
In 2012, Attorney General Harris created a Human Trafficking Work Group and released a report, The State of Human Trafficking in California, which discusses the growth of human trafficking crimes statewide and the challenges with combatting them effectively.
