Post 4990
See the full video at https://rumble.com/v6hncpd-from-insurance-fraud-to-human-trafficking.html and at https://youtu.be/YkftGjlCFv8
CRIMINAL CONDUCT NEVER GETS BETTER
In The People v. Dennis Lee Givens, B330497, California Court of Appeals, Second District, Eighth Division (February 3, 2025) Givens appealed to reverse his conviction for human trafficking and sought an order for a new trial.
FACTS
In September 2020, Givens matched with J.C. on the dating app “Tagged.” J.C., who was 20 years old at the time, had known Givens since childhood because their mothers were best friends. After matching, J.C. and Givens saw each other daily, and J.C. began working as a prostitute under Givens’s direction.
Givens set quotas for J.C., took her earnings, and threatened her when she failed to meet his demands. In February 2022, J.C. confided in her mother who then contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. The police arrested Givens after reviewing evidence on J.C.’s phone.
Givens was charged with one count of human trafficking, with additional allegations of aggravating factors due to his prior convictions. He pleaded not guilty, and the trial was initially set for October 2022 but was continued to February 2023. Just before the trial, Givens’s counsel discovered Cruz’s criminal history, which included convictions for aggravated robbery, welfare fraud, insurance fraud, and forgery.
During the trial, the court excluded three of Cruz’s four prior convictions, allowing only the 2009 forgery conviction as admissible. The trial lasted six days, and the jury returned a guilty verdict after two hours of deliberation. At sentencing, the court found the aggravating factors outweighed any mitigation and sentenced Givens to the upper term of 20 years for his human trafficking conviction.
THE APPEAL
The Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court properly exercised its discretion to conduct the trial and limit Cruz’s testimony to relevant matters. The appellate court found no errors and upheld the trial court’s decisions because the California Supreme Court’s recent decision in People v. Lynch (2024) 16 Cal.5th 730 (Lynch) forecloses his argument.
The relevant inquiry for the Court of Appeals was whether an appellate court can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that a jury would have found true all of the aggravating facts relied upon by the trial court to justify an upper term sentence, or that those facts were otherwise proved true in compliance with the current statutory requirements.
I have had a court and prosecutors tell me that insurance companies can’t be victims of a crime, like fraud, so they are not prosecuted. Givins had was a career criminal who had been convicted of the crime of insurance fraud only to graduate to human trafficking and turning a young girl into a life of prostitution with Givins as her Pimp. If his prior conviction for insurance fraud had resulted in a long sentence JC would have grown up without experience as a prostitute. Prosecutors and courts must understand that insurance fraud is a serious crime and punish the perpetrators appropriately.
(c) 2025 Barry Zalma & ClaimSchool, Inc.
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