A Milwaukee man has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term for his role in operating a sex trafficking ring, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Gregory J. Haanstad, confirmed. Samuel L. Spencer, known also as "Bin Laden," will face 45 years behind bars, followed by five years of supervised release after a conviction on four counts of sex trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, the U.S. Attorney's Office reported.
During the trial, evidence revealed that Spencer, a 53-year-old drug dealer from Milwaukee, utilized his drug supply to manipulate women with addictions, coercing them into commercial sex acts to profit himself. As per trial evidence, Spencer's tactics went beyond drug dependency; he also controlled his victims by depriving them of sleep and food, employing threats with firearms, and inflicting extreme physical violence – behaviors that included strangling, whipping, burning and even kidnapping a woman in the trunk of his car, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
At the sentencing, Chief United States District Judge Pamela Pepper referred to Spencer's 15-year stint of violence as "almost impossible to get your brain around." She also pointed out that the level of violence was among the worst she'd seen, noting that Spencer used a mix of "force, threats, violence—and sometimes all three" to strip his victims "of their human agency," as mentioned by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
U.S. Attorney Haanstad highlighted the severity and persistence of Spencer's actions, stating, "For more than 15 years, Samuel Spencer used a combination of violence, threats, forms of torture, manipulation, and financial control to coerce his victims to engage in commercial sex acts for one purpose – to make as much money for him as possible." His condemnation of Spencer's actions was echoed by Special Agent in Charge Michael Hensle of the FBI's Milwaukee Field Office, who emphasized that the sentence reflects the egregious nature of the crimes and assures that such actions will be thoroughly prosecuted, as per the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The collaborative effort by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Milwaukee Police Department led to the successful investigation and prosecution of the case, with Assistant United States Attorneys Erica J. Lounsberry and Julie F. Stewart at the helm of legal proceedings.
