SAN FRANCISCO — A California appeals court upheld all but four convictions against the San Ramon man who was the lead defendant in Contra Costa County’s biggest human trafficking case and convicted of forcing women into a nationwide prostitution ring.
James Vernon Joseph Jr. was convicted in 2018 of conspiracy to commit human trafficking and numerous counts of raping women he forced into prostitution. In a 21-page ruling, the First District Appellate Court rejected Joseph’s arguments that the acts behind the conspiracy charge predated the state’s human trafficking statute.
The appellate justices also rejected a “somewhat opaque” brief that argued the trial judge should have granted a defense change-of-venue motion, writing in the decision that “Joseph devotes dozens of pages in his opening brief to the venue argument but does not identify the counts he claims should have been dismissed until the final sentence.”
The court overruled four rape convictions on the argument that the rapes only happened in North Carolina, so they shouldn’t have been prosecuted in California. Even without those convictions, Joseph’s prison sentence stands at more than a century.
Joseph, 56, was convicted of conspiring with another East Bay resident, whom prosecutors called his “top prostitute,” to traffic several women around the United States. He took the stand in his own defense during his 2018 trial, recounting his life as a stripper-turned-pimp but insisted that his prostitution ring was done with the consent of the women involved. At his sentencing he called his numerous accusers “liars” and said they were condemning him to a horrific prison sentence because he’d be incarcerated with the stigma of being a convicted rapist.
Joseph’s criminal history includes more than one instance where he was caught trafficking women and avoided serious jail time.
In 2009, he was arrested and charged with possessing a fake ID in Missouri, although court records say a woman in his company told police Joseph had taken her to Missouri from Ohio and told her to engage in prostitution. He ultimately got a year in prison.
During that federal case, authorities did a background check on Joseph and discovered he had an active warrant in New York for assaulting a woman named Natasha there in 2001. New York authorities declined to have Joseph extradited on the active warrant until three years later, when Natasha told her story to the TV show America’s Most Wanted and the show’s producers made an inquiry as to the warrant status. Then, with cameras rolling, police arrested Joseph — who’d been released from the ID fraud case — at his registered probation address.
Joseph was convicted of assaulting Natasha in New York, and once again, was sentenced to a year. After that he came to the Bay Area and started trafficking from a San Ramon home. In the 2018 trial, Natasha testified as a prosecution witness that Joseph had kidnapped her after they met in Alameda County, but jurors acquitted him of kidnapping.
The appellate court’s decision is good news for San Ramon police, who are one step closer to being able to start spending Joseph’s money. That’s because of a 2019 agreement between Joseph and the District Attorney’s office, which said once Joseph’s appeals were fully exhausted, authorities could take possession of $60,000 in cars and luxury items seized during the investigation. Joseph was fighting the asset forfeiture case, serving as his own civil attorney, when that deal was struck.
Joseph is serving his sentence in Folsom State Prison in Represa, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.