RICHMOND — Contra Costa prosecutors have filed human trafficking and pimping charges against a man who was the subject of two separate 2024 investigations that began within weeks of one another, court records show.
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Jamon Ward, 33, was arrested last month on charges of human trafficking, pimping, trafficking a minor and pandering, court records show. He is being held without bail and is due to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 11.
Richmond police began investigating Ward in April 2024, when a teen girl’s mother accused Ward of trafficking her daughter while the two were in an eight-month “relationship,” authorities said. The girl’s mother came forward after a domestic violence incident in Oakland that resulted in the girl being hospitalized, according to court records.
Police also investigated Ward for alleged statutory rape and domestic violence but he hasn’t been charged with either of those things.
The girl’s mother provided police a video that appeared to show Ward “disciplining” her daughter and another female, as they walked a city street dressed in pink stilettos and mini skirts, authorities said in court filings. While this investigation was ongoing, police received a second domestic violence report, this time involving a woman who reported Ward assaulted her at a Macdonald Avenue store in Richmond on April 30, 2024.
Ward was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence and robbery, but later released without charges. The woman reportedly told authorities she met Ward in Oakland in 2022, and that he’d trafficked her and the teen girl there, as well as in Richmond and Vallejo. The woman said that she would make up to $1,000 on a “good day” and that if she refused to prostitute, Ward would beat her, according to police.
Police say they also found a Sacramento prostitution ad posted in April 2024 that was forensically linked to the girl’s phone, as well as text messages from Ward’s phone indicating he’d discussed prostitution transactions with a third suspected victim, according to court records.
Ward has pleaded not guilty. At his preliminary hearing a judge will review the prosecution’s evidence and determine whether there is enough to uphold the case. The charges were filed on July 18, roughly a month before Ward was arrested.