South Florida man who used strip clubs to lure women into prostitution ordered to pay
A South Florida man convicted of luring dozens of women at strip clubs and through the internet into his sex-trafficking ring was sentenced to 60 years in prison this week.
William D. Foster, 50, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, was also ordered to pay $14 million to his victims and another $3.4 million penalty to the federal government for running a prostitution racket in Florida and other states over the past 20 years.
Prosecutors said during Foster’s sentencing Monday in Fort Lauderdale federal court that he used manipulation, lies and threats to force his victims into commercial sex so that he could enrich himself.
“Foster told the victims that he would invest their earnings so that they could retire in their 20s, which was not true,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami. “Foster coerced victims into working eight-hour shifts, six days a week, every week of the year and kept all their money.”
Prosecutors said Foster had sex with many of the victims, some of whom were minor girls, during the defendant’s sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal. They also said he transported some victims to other states, including New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Nevada, as he expanded his prostitution operation beyond South Florida.
Foster even tried to grow his business by starting “Foster Care,” which featured a website and promised to help sex-trafficking victims, prosecutors said. But his ploy was to entice them into his prostitution racket, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Obenauf.
Foster, represented by defense attorney David Howard, was arrested in late 2019 and pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and several other counts. Two of his co-conspirators — Ashleigh Holloway, 37, of Fort Lauderdale, and Hanah Chan, 32, of Delray Beach — pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges in connection with the sex-trafficking operation and are scheduled to be sentenced on Friday.
The FBI began the investigation in February 2017 when two women contacted agents and said they were recruited by Foster when they were teens, authorities said.
Foster was the leader of the sex-trafficking operation and would exploit women and minor girls to make a profit, according to court records. Holloway and Chan, who were two of Foster’s trusted “Main Girls,” assisted Foster in sex-trafficking at least one of his victims, investigators said.
Foster used “displays of a fun and wealthy lifestyle as a way to recruit new females,” according to an FBI criminal complaint and affidavit.
His victims, both women and minor girls, would then be sent to work at strip clubs across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, the affidavit said. They would also be forced to have sex with clients and Foster. He would also send them across the country to strip clubs to entertain customers, including in New York, Las Vegas and Detroit.
One of his victims was recruited as a 17-year-old out of high school while she was in foster care in August 2007 and was trafficked by Foster through May 2010, the affidavit said. Another victim told agents she had been “kidnapped by a violent pimp” and was being forced to work at a strip club known as Gold Rush, 7770 Biscayne Blvd. in Miami, when she met Foster inside the club’s VIP champagne room in August 2004.
The women and girls who lived with Foster had designer clothes, handbags and shoes, and drove high-end cars: a Ferrari, a Cadillac Escalade, a Mercedes-Benz and a Chevy Corvette, according to the FBI affidavit. He would put them on “lemon diets,” pay for their cosmetic surgeries and take them to yacht parties and dinners to meet with wealthy clients. They were also taught to recruit minors and young women from group homes, shelters, and strip clubs where Foster said they would “be vulnerable and in need of help,” the FBI affidavit said.
As part of his prostitution ring, he operated Foster’s Care Inc., a nonprofit company that listed Foster as the president and was based at a home in North Miami. The nonprofit claimed to provide “social services, counseling, shelter and education to the youth and young adults in the tri-county area,” according to the affidavit. In September 2019, investigators also found and seized www.fosterscareinc.com, a website that claimed to work with the police and the FBI to provide protection to sex-trafficking victims.
The site also claimed to offer free services, including housing, therapy, medical treatment and job training, and encouraged sex-trafficking victims to contact the organization for help. In reality, investigators said the website was being used for the purpose of sex-trafficking children by “force, fraud, or coercion.”
This story was originally published September 29, 2022 at 3:07 PM.
