BOSTON — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Massachusetts), published as received.
BOSTON – Two Boston women were sentenced in U.S. District Court in Boston for transporting other women across state lines to engage in prostitution.
Vanessa Grandoit, 26, of Roxbury, was sentenced today to one year and one day in prison and five years of supervised release. Kairis Sanchez, a/k/a “Lola,” of Dorchester and Portland, Maine, was sentenced on April 29, 2015, to 18 months in prison and five years of supervised release. Both women pleaded guilty to one count each of transportation to engage in criminal sexual activity.
Grandoit and Sanchez were both charged in indictments that named other individuals in a larger sex trafficking organization. Specifically, co-defendants Raymond Jeffreys, a/k/a “Skame Dollarz,” “Skame,” “Skamen,” “Define Dollarz,” and “Frenchy,” 27, of Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, and Portland, Maine; and Corey Norris, a/k/a “Case,” and “Jacorey Johnson,” 25, of Dorchester, were charged with the trafficking and transportation of nine victims, six of whom were under the age of 18, for the purposes of prostitution in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Nevada, Georgia, Florida, and California. Grandoit and Sanchez provided logistical support to Jeffreys and Norris at various times, including by driving particular prostitutes across state lines.
In addition to the sex trafficking charges, Jeffreys and another defendant, Jaquan Casanova a/k/a “Cass,” “Joffe,” “Joffy,” and “Joffy Joe,” 24, of Dorchester, were charged in a third superseding indictment with tampering with a federal witness by attempting to kill him and with conspiring with each other to do so. The victim of the shooting is Darian Thomson, a/k/a “Bo,” “Dee Bo,” himself a former co-defendant in the sex-trafficking operation. According to the allegations in the third superseding indictment, in April 2013, Thomson was released from state custody on unrelated state charges in New Jersey and returned to Boston where he was shot in the head by Casanova at the direction of Jeffreys. The third superseding indictment alleges that Jeffreys believed that Thomson had cooperated with law enforcement in New Jersey and directed the shooting of Thomson with the intent to kill him in order to prevent Thomson from providing information to federal law enforcement regarding his and Norris’ sex trafficking activities.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Bruce M. Foucart, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; and Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, made the announcement today. The witness tampering charges were investigated jointly by HSI and the Boston Police Department’s Human Trafficking Unit and Homicide Unit. The sex trafficking charges were investigated jointly by HSI, BPD, and the FBI.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office also wishes to recognize and thank Shawn Meehan, Resident Agent in Charge of the HSI Portland Office; Vincent B. Lisi, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; Aaron Steps, Supervisory Senior Resident Agent in Charge of the FBI Maine Office; the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office; Cumberland County (Maine) District Attorney’s Office; the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine; the Massachusetts State Police; the Portland (Maine), Old Town (Maine), Braintree, and South Portland (Maine) Police Departments; the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency; and the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Amy Harman Burkart and Christopher Pohl of Ortiz’s Civil Rights Enforcement Team and Special Assistant United States Attorney and Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney David S. Bradley.
