Pierce County human trafficker pimped while in jail and on probation, charges allege
A Lakewood pimp has been prostituting women while in jail and on community custody, charging papers allege.
Prosecutors charged 35-year-old Johnta Durand Hammond with leading organized crime, second-degree human trafficking, money laundering, criminal conspiracy and two counts of second-degree promoting prostitution.
Hammond pleaded not guilty at arraignment in Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday.
Court Commissioner Craig Adams set bail at $1 million.
Prosecutors also brought various charges against four others who allegedly helped manage Hammond’s operation, including some of the women he prostituted.
Charging papers give this account:
Hammond has been on community custody this year for a first-degree assault conviction, and he’s been arrested multiple times for violating his community custody conditions.
Via jail phone and video calls, he made threats and told women what to wear, what to do with the money and how much prostitution to do on a given day.
He’s been unemployed but “is routinely seen wearing expensive clothing, expensive jewelry and has multiple vehicles registered in his name,” the probable cause statement says. “He also reports he lives independently and maintains rent for his apartment in Lakewood.”
In jail phone calls, he verbally abused one woman and tracked how much money she had.
She counted the money on video in front of him and took her phone outside so that he could watch her walking the street.
He told her “how to wear her make up, what clothing to wear, how much she is required to make before she stops working for the night, and how many dates that she is required to do before she is allowed to stop for the day,” the probable cause statement says.
Once when he told her to wear less makeup, she said she couldn’t because it was covering “contusions.”
It’s better, she told him, “to beat her in a manner that is limited to her torso that does not limit her ability to attract clients,” the probable cause statement says.
One time she said: “The last time you gave me money for my children was on Christmas of last year when you gave me that concussion and then you took it back,” the charging papers say.
He told another prostitute in a jail call that he had made $47,000 in a month.
Investigators did several sting operations.
In August they saw him in a Porsche in Portland, with a woman who “approached one of the undercover officers and agreed to exchange sex for money.”
Hammond was booked back into the Pierce County Jail Wednesday morning.
This story was originally published September 27, 2019 at 6:04 AM.
