Boston Man Sentenced to 10 Years for Child Sex Trafficking

A Boston man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sex trafficking a 16-year-old girl, authorities announced today.

Jonathan White, 29, of Dorchester, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani to 10 years in prison and five years of supervised release. The sentence was handed down in connection with White’s role in recruiting and transporting a minor to engage in prostitution.

In December 2014, White pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to recruiting and transporting a minor to engage in prostitution. The matter was transferred to the District of Massachusetts for sentencing.

The case began in June 2012, when a 16-year-old girl from Georgia began chatting with an individual who was working for White as a prostitute on the social networking site, Tagged.com. White then paid for the victim’s bus ticket from Atlanta to Orlando, Fla., where she engaged in commercial sex acts with clients solicited through Backpage.com ads.

White ultimately received the money that customers paid for the commercial sex acts. The victim then traveled with White and the prostitute from Florida to Brooklyn, where she engaged in more commercial sex acts solicited over the Internet. A few weeks later, the victim became involved with another pimp, but law enforcement discovered White’s role in the victim’s exploitation and he was charged.

U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Boston, made the announcement today. The case was prosecuted in Boston by Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Kosto of Ortiz’s Civil Rights Enforcement Team, and in Brooklyn by Assistant U.S. Attorney Soumya Dayanana.