Female Victim Endured Forced Teeth Pullings, Financial Abuse, Psychological Manipulation: DOJ
By Josh Mitchell
Editor
River Mississippi News
MISSISSIPPI — A female who escaped a sex-trafficking abduction when she fled from her assailant in Mississippi saw justice handed down Tuesday when a federal judge ordered the California man to spend the rest of his life imprisoned.
The female victim in the case underwent a series of forced-prostitution scenarios when she was lured to the vehicle of 54-year Michael Deon Fulcher of Gardena, Calif., a U.S. Department of Justice news release issued today states.
Fulcher was already sentenced to over two years in prison for interstate transportation for prostitution, adding to his lifelong sentence in prison ordered Tuesday on charges of sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution.
A jury found him guilty in January.
The victim was “traumatized” and “robbed of her dignity” when Fulcher forced her to prostitute herself for his financial gain, the release adds, quoting Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
U.S. Attorney Todd Gee for the Southern District of Mississippi said in the release that, “Human trafficking is not just a plot for Hollywood movies.”
The victim’s courage and strength allowed her to escape from Fulcher in Mississippi and report the crimes to authorities, he added.
The release says, “Fulcher used sexual assault, threats of violence, isolation, control, psychological manipulation and emotional abuse on the victim after he lured her to his car in Las Vegas.”
The crimes occurred between April and June of 2020. Human trafficking should be reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
Another defendant in the case, Jonzie Hamilton, helped “compel the victim to engage in commercial sex acts over the course of several weeks,” the news release adds. “Fulcher required the victim to follow his strict rules, threatened the victim with physical harm, confiscated her money and Social Security debit card and even had an unlicensed dentist pull out her teeth.”
The crimes spanned the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, where she escaped.
Fulcher also controlled the female’s phone, required her to send him all of her earnings and forbid her to see a doctor to address a chronic medical sickness . . .,” it adds.
The FBI Jackson Field Office-Gulfport Resident Agency investigated the case.
