The Minnesota Supreme Court has affirmed a conviction against a Brooklyn Park man who received the longest prison sentence in state history for his involvement in a sex-trafficking operation.
The court issued its opinion Wednesday in the 2013 conviction of Antonio Dion Washington-Davis by Ramsey County District Court.
Washington-Davis was convicted by a jury in November of 2013 of six prostitution-related offenses in a Twin Cities sex-trafficking ring that also involved his brother and two uncles.
His five female victims ranged in age from 15 to 31.
The operation was exposed after the grandmother of the 15-year-old emailed Ramsey County Attorney John Choi to tell him her granddaughter had fallen victim to a sex-trafficking scheme operating out of a house on the 600 block of East Hawthorne Avenue.
The scheme ran from September 2010 to July 2012 and involved hundreds of online adds, at least 30 phone numbers and more than 100 credit cards.
A criminal complaint said the operation preyed on young, small women, some of whom had mental disabilities.
During trial, Washington-Davis’ attorneys argued he was guilty of no more than being born into the wrong family and that he was never directly involved in sex-trafficking.
He ended up being sentenced to 36 years in prison, which the Ramsey County attorney’s office said at the time was the longest sentence imposed on a state trafficking defendant in state history.
In his appeal, Washington-Davis argued that the state statute involving the promotion and solicitation of prostitution that was used to convict him was overly broad under the First Amendment. He also argued that the evidence used to convict him was insufficient to prove that his involvement in the sex-trafficking operation was intentional.
The Supreme Court disagreed and affirmed a lower court’s ruling on the case.