United States v. Gardner

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Gardner shared a cell phone with his 17-year-old girlfriend, B.H., to facilitate her “sex dates” with other men. Gardner had advertised B.H. on Backpage.com, arranged her transportation and gave her drugs for the encounters, had threatened B.H. when she did not want to participate, and demanded the money clients paid for. When one of B.H.’s clients turned out to be an undercover officer, she agreed to let police search the phone. B.H. was pregnant at the time. A jury convicted Gardner of trafficking a minor for sex and producing child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 1591(a)(1) and 2251(a), primarily based on evidence recovered from the phone. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting Gardner’s challenges to the denial of his motion to suppress and to the sufficiency of the evidence. B.H. consented to let officers search the phone and had actual and apparent authority to do so. Photographs on the phone were relevant to show an element of the sex trafficking charge—that B.H. feared that Gardner would cause her “serious harm” if she refused to prostitute herself. View "United States v. Gardner" on Justia Law