Prosecutor Ben Gauen recognized all the signs. He knew that the teenager who’d been screaming for help in the middle of a spring day on Aurora Avenue North — the “epicenter of sex trafficking in Seattle,” according to Gauen — was a victim of sex trafficking.
Witnesses, still “physically shaking” from what they saw that day in June, told police that a man had punched the teenager in the face and shoved her inside an SUV, court records say. When police found her in the SUV, with mascara running down her face and bruises on her skin, she insisted she wanted no help.
It wasn’t the first time law enforcement found the woman in danger. Court records show King County sheriff’s deputies removed her from the area, known to local sex workers as “the Track,” four separate times when she was a minor.
Prosecutors knew that her attacker, Christopher Jamison, had a history of rape and domestic violence charges. Social media posts by Jamison and the woman indicated he identifies as a “pimp” and profited from her prostitution, according to court documents.
In a court filing days after the incident, Gauen made the argument that Jamison should be held in jail on $100,000 bail — not just because of the alleged assault, but because it was clear to prosecutors that it was about sex trafficking.
