this week in the big round-up: start with the small fries:

Timothy Allen Townsel, 21, had been charged with human trafficking of five victims, including minors, as well as street terrorism and other gang charges. He accepted a plea deal an conviction to two counts of human trafficking and gang activity, authorities said. Authorities say Townsel recruited his victims from local high schools and middle schools in the Modesto area, and trafficked them throughout Las Vegas, Utah, Arizona and other parts of California. One of the girls was less than 16 years old at the time. Concord police identified Townsel as a trafficker after a suspicious persons call at a local Best Western, which investigators described in court records as a hot spot for prostitution. Responding officers arrested a suspected john and identified three suspected prostitutes.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/21/modest-man-gets-16-years-in-east-bay-human-trafficking-case/

society made him: setting precedent: who what when where why

He also said he owned four flash-memory drives and a cellphone with more pictures, some including “depictions of sadistic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence,” for a total of more than 600 images and videos. A defense sentencing memorandum filed with the court June 13 said Hodges stored many of them in a Dropbox folder and used the Kik Messenger app to solicit and spread those images, up until an April 4, 2017, warrant search at his home, followed by an arrest at his workplace, revealed the pornography. In the memorandum, Hodges’ lawyer pointed to his client’s difficult life growing up gay, suffering abuse from multiple adults as a teen, battling depression and substance abuse, and usage of social media like Instagram where he “discovered his attraction to older adolescents because the more frequently he ‘liked’ such images, the more such images were provided by the application. […] The internet provided easy access to material he knew was immoral. Still, the more images he received the more he sought.”

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/20/east-bay-resident-ex-swimming-instructor-sentenced-to-prison/

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