Local Man Charged with Human Trafficking, Child Pornography

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A federal grand jury has charged J’Vonta C. Buckley, 25, of Columbus, Ohio, with charges related to human trafficking and child pornography in an indictment returned in Columbus, Ohio.

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and members of the Central Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force, including Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs and Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien announced the indictment returned last week.

The indictment alleges that the defendant recruited and harbored a 16-year-old victim, posted advertisements that depicted the child on the website Backpage.com to solicit customers for commercial sexual activity, and used her to create sexually explicit child pornography images with his cell phone. The indictment also alleges that Buckley used force, fraud or coercion against an adult female who also worked for him as a prostitute on Backpage. 

Investigators with the human trafficking task force discovered Buckley in December 2014 while conducting a sting on a Backpage ad that they believed depicted a minor girl. The defendant was arrested at that time on a warrant for a gun charge and served a sentence for that charge that ended December 20, 2015.

Buckley’s initial appearance on the current charges was held yesterday in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Norah McCann King.

He was charged with one count of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, which carries a potential sentence of 15 years to life in prison, one count of sex trafficking of a minor, which carries a potential sentence of 10 years to life in prison, one count of production of child pornography, which carries a potential sentence of 15 to 30 years’ incarceration and one count of possession of child pornography, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.

U.S. Attorney Stewart commended the investigation of this case by the Ohio Attorney General’s Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes authorities from the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, Columbus Division of Police, Ohio State Highway Patrol, Powell Police Department, The Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office and the Delaware County Prosecutor's Office. He also commended Assistant United States Attorney Heather A. Hill and Special Assistant United States Attorney Jennifer Rausch from the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, who are prosecuting the case.

An indictment merely contains allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.