A San Diego man pleaded guilty Monday to a federal sex trafficking charge for recruiting and soliciting teenage girls and women to engage in prostitution.
Jonathan Madison, 29, faces a maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment for advertising commercial sex acts with the victims and transporting women and girls to customers in California and Colorado between 2017 and 2020, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Locally, Madison was investigated for his involvement with a teenage girl in San Diego County between November 2017 and September 2018, the U.S. Attorney's Office reported.
According to court documents, Madison posted online advertisements featuring the girl, who was 15 and 16 years old at the time, and helped arrange for her to meet with "johns" in San Diego County and other southern California locations.
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Court documents state that a review of Madison's email account showed he posted ads featuring the girl on sites like backpage.com and craigslist.com. His cell phone was also tracked near the sites of several locations around the dates and times where the girl was engaging in sex acts with customers, according to an FBI agent's affidavit.
Prosecutors allege Madison also filmed himself having sex with an underage girl and sent the video to her cell phone.
Madison was arrested last April and has remained in custody since that date. He's slated to be sentenced May 3 in San Diego federal court.
