Vancouver man sentenced to 16 years in prison for sex trafficking two teenagers from Eugene
A Vancouver, Washington, man was sentenced to more than 16 years in federal prison Monday for child sex trafficking, which included drugging and sexually abusing two teenage girls from Eugene.
The defendant, 34-year-old Johnl Jackson, was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison, along with five years of supervised release for his drugging and sex abuse of the girls, 14 and 15 at the time, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Prior to abducting the girls, Jackson in 2016 befriended and began coaching Vancouver resident Keonte Desmond Scott, 23, in commercial sex trafficking, according to the DOJ. Scott at the time had been released from prison recently. After Scott began a relationship with 23-year-old Diana Petrovic from Vancouver, he and Jackson trafficked Petrovic, and began using her to recruit and traffic other female minors.
By summer 2018, Scott was back in prison, and Petrovic began working directly with Jackson, the DOJ said. In August 2018, Petrovic targeted a 15-year-old girl on social media who they had already trafficked in the past and convinced her to meet under false pretenses.
Petrovic and Jackson, who was armed with a firearm, and another adult woman, drove to Eugene to pick her up, the DOJ said. The girl was accompanied by a 14-year-old friend. On the drive back to Vancouver Jackson gave drugs to both girls and was overheard saying he and his partners would make the girls some money.
Jackson gave the girls more drugs when they got to Vancouver, and upon arrival he and Petrovic engaged in sex acts with the intoxicated girls.
At some point the group went to a house for Jackson to get more drugs. At the house, Jackson and Petrovic sent one girl back into a room to engage in sex acts with the drug supplier in exchange for drugs and money, the DOJ said.
Jackson and Petrovic later took the girls to a gathering at an auto shop in Battle Ground, Washington, where they forced one girl to have sex with a man in exchange for money.
One girl was able to escape with a man at the auto shop who helped her get home. The girl who escaped was convinced the pair were going to kill her, the DOJ said.
Jackson and Petrovic took the other girl to a residence in northeast Portland where she was forced to have sex with one man for $300, before being raped by another. The girl was then taken to a hotel, which she escaped from, before being rescued by her grandfather several hours later.
The first charges came in May 2019 when a federal grand jury in Portland returned a six-count indictment charging Scott, Petrovic and two accomplices with child sex trafficking and transporting minors with intent to engage in sexual activity.
In a separate case for Jackson and Petrovic, a federal grand jury in October 2019 returned a three-count indictment charging the two with sex trafficking a child by force, fraud and coercion; child sex trafficking; and transporting a minor with intent for them to engage in sexual activity.
Jackson and Petrovic were given a second indictment in November 2021, which added a charge of conspiring to commit child sex trafficking.
Jackson was convicted by a jury in Portland in March.
Petrovic was charged with distributing a controlled substance to a person under 21 and pleaded guilty. She is set to be sentenced in April 2023.
Scott pleaded guilty in December 2021 to two counts of sex trafficking. On May 31, he was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison and five years’ supervised release.
If you are a human trafficking victim or have information about a potential human trafficking situation, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or by texting 233733.
Louis Krauss covers breaking news for The Register-Guard. Contact him at lkrauss@registerguard.com, and follow him on Twitter @LouisKraussNews.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Man sentenced to prison for child sex trafficking of Eugene girls
