Wilmington man guilty on federal trafficking charges

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A jury found a Wilmington man guilty of two counts of transportation across state lines with the intent of prostitution in a federal court Monday.

In a previous report, investigators say Randolph Johnson Spain, 24, lured young women out of New Hanover County and then forced them into prostitution.

The District Attorney’s office said this was the first case of its kind in New Hanover County.

US Attorney General’s Office attorney Thomas Walker says Spain was the target of an investigation which was a collaborative effort among several law enforcement agencies including the Wilmington Police Department, the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office and the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Spain was caught in 2010 when law enforcement in Norfolk, Virginia, were called to a hotel for a reported domestic assault. During the investigation, two women encountered there told the Virginia authorities that they had been working as prostitutes for Spain. They said he had brought them by car to Virginia from North Carolina, would not pay them and would not let them leave. Spain faces a maximum of ten years imprisonment on each of the two counts.

Assistant District Attorney Lindsey Roberson says Spain has separate state human trafficking charges that are still pending. Roberson says his sentencing is scheduled for March.

Attorney and former state senator Thom Goolsby says it’s a major problem in the Tar Heel State.

“We are number eight in the country for sex trafficking,” Goolsby said. “We have so many gangs… that have made money over the years in drugs. Now trafficking in human beings – you can only sell a drug one time. You can sell a sex slave multiple, multiple times.”

A new law Goolsby pushed for in the state senate puts any person convicted of human trafficking in North Carolina on the sex offender registry.

“Most of them are going to be registered for the rest of their lives,” Goolsby said. “They’re going to have satellite based monitoring, so we know where they are all the time. In other words, it puts a real crimp in your business as a sex trafficker.”