Man sentenced to 10 years in prison for multiple counts of promoting prostitution

A 39-year-old man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree promoting prostitution.

Jerry Roberts was sentenced to 120 months on Nov. 10 after an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Child Exploitation Task Force found evidence he participated in human trafficking. The task force is made up of investigators from the Spokane Police Department, Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI.

In January, Roberts transported a teen to an undercover human trafficking operation conducted by the task force, according to court documents. Further investigation revealed Roberts was also actively trafficking two other teens.

At the time, he was arrested and charged with two counts of commercial sexual abuse of a minor.

Previously, in August 2018, Roberts was in custody on an unrelated charge and was found to be communicating with a woman from jail and directing her to prostitute herself to raise his bail money. An investigation by the Spokane Police Department Human Trafficking Unit revealed Roberts had a history of trafficking that victim, according to a department news release.

He was charged with one count of second-degree promoting prostitution for that incident.

Roberts has a lengthy criminal history, including multiple convictions for theft, assault, and violating no-contact and protection orders.