USA v. Lonnie Dontae Mitchell

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-14153
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
LONNIE DONTAE MITCHELL,
Defendant- Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cr-00344-RAH-KFP-1
____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 1 of 8

-- 1 of 8 --

2 Opinion of the Court 22-14153
Before J ORDAN, L AGOA, and B RASHER , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Lonnie Dontae Mitchell appeals his convictions for sex traf-
ficking of a minor, sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, and
interstate travel for purposes of prostitution under 18 U.S.C. §§
1591 and 2422. He argues the district court erred by excluding evi-
dence of the victims’ prior acts of prostitution under Federal Rule
of Evidence 412 and by admitting bad act evidence against him in
violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). We disagree. For the
reasons explained below, we affirm Mitchell’s conviction and sen-
tence.
I.
Lonnie Mitchell ran a sex trafficking scheme where he re-
cruited women to perform commercial sex acts and turn over their
proceeds to him. In addition to extorting and physically abusing the
women, Mitchell used his status as a drug dealer to recruit women
and provided drugs to the women so that they would develop a
drug addiction. Mitchell would then withhold drugs from the
women until they performed commercial sex acts.
The district court granted the government’s motion to pre-
clude Mitchell from introducing evidence of the victims’ prior sex-
ual behavior and predisposition under Federal Rule of Evidence
412. It reasoned that there was little probative value in admitting
any evidence of the victims’ prior sex acts. The district court
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 2 of 8

-- 2 of 8 --

22-14153 Opinion of the Court 3
permitted wide-ranging cross-examination regarding the victims’
dealings with Mitchell, including the means he used to cause them
to engage in commercial sex.
The district court also denied Mitchell’s request under Rule
404(b) to prevent the government from referencing Mitchell’s
other “bad acts,” including evidence of his drug-dealing activities
as a means to control and coerce his victims. The district court rea-
soned that the admission of this evidence was not used for propen-
sity but was instead direct evidence that went to the elements of
the crimes charged, i.e., that Mitchell used drugs to recruit victims
and to force and coerce them to engage in commercial sex acts.
The district court limited the United States’ frequency of the terms
“drug dealer” and “drug distributor” to refer to Mitchell.
Mitchell timely appealed these two rulings after a jury con-
victed him on all counts and the district court sentenced him.
II.
We review the district court’s evidentiary rulings for an
abuse of discretion. See United States v. Hernandez, 906 F.3d 1367,
1369 (11th Cir. 2018). However, when a defendant alleges the ex-
clusion of evidence violated his constitutional rights, we review the
rulings de novo. See United States v. Sarras, 575 F.3d 1191, 1209 n.24
(11th Cir. 2009).
III.
Mitchell first argues that the district court violated his rights
under the Confrontation Clause by excluding evidence of his
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 3 of 8

-- 3 of 8 --

4 Opinion of the Court 22-14153
victims’ voluntary prostitution under Federal Rule of Evidence
412. He argues this evidence was critical to his defense against the
charges against him and thus his rights were violated when he
could not present his full defense. He also argues that the govern-
ment opened the door for him to question the victims regarding
their prior commercial sex acts on three different occasions.
Rule 412 prohibits the use of a victim’s sexual conduct “to
prove that a victim engaged in other sexual behavior” or “to prove
a victim’s sexual predisposition.” Fed. R. Evid. 412(a). However,
Rule 412 provides an exception in criminal cases for “evidence
whose exclusion would violate the defendant’s constitutional
rights.” Id. at 412(b)(1)(C).
“[T]he Sixth Amendment guarantees only an opportunity for
effective cross-examination, not cross-examination that is effective
in whatever way, and to whatever extent, the defense might wish.”
United States v. Beale, 921 F.3d 1412, 1424 (11th Cir. 1991) (citation
omitted). Thus, we have recognized that “a defendant’s right to
present a complete defense is not absolute, and is subject to reason-
able restrictions.” United States v. Mitrovic, 890 F.3d 1217, 1221 (11th
Cir. 2018) (citing United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 308 (1998)).
Indeed, “state and federal rulemakers have broad latitude under the
Constitution to establish rules excluding evidence from criminal
trials. Such rules do not abridge an accused’s right to present a de-
fense so long as they are not arbitrary or disproportionate to the
purposes they are designed to serve.” Id. (citation omitted). In these
circumstances, a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights are
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 4 of 8

-- 4 of 8 --

22-14153 Opinion of the Court 5
violated when the district court prohibits questioning that would
give a reasonable jury “a significantly different impression of the
witness’ credibility . . . .” United States v. Garcia, 13 F.3d 1464, 1469
(11th Cir. 1994).
We have rejected similar Confrontation Clause challenges
in an unpublished opinion, and many of our sister circuits have
held that a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights are not violated
when a district court prohibits evidence of a victim’s sexual history.
See United States v. Williams, 564 F. App’x 568, 575–77 (11th Cir.
2014); United States v. Carson, 870 F.3d 584, 593–94 (7th Cir. 2017);
United States v. Lockhart, 844 F.3d 501, 510 (5th Cir. 2016); United
States v. Gemma, 818 F.3d 23, 34 (1st Cir. 2016); United States v. Mack,
808 F.3d 1074, 1084 (6th Cir. 2015); United States v. Rivera, 799 F.3d
180, 185–86 (2d Cir. 2015); United States v. Roy, 781 F.3d 416, 420
(8th Cir. 2015). Those decisions recognize that whether a victim
previously engaged in commercial sex acts is irrelevant to establish
that the defendant forced or coerced the victims into engaging in
commercial sex acts under the charged circumstances. They reason
that voluntary prostitution is a separate act from commercial sex
transactions that occur as the result of force or coercion. See Carson,
870 F.3d at 595. Thus, because testimony about a trafficking vic-
tim’s prior sex acts has little to no probative value, those decisions
hold that a district court does not violate a defendant’s rights under
the Confrontation Clause by precluding this kind of evidence.
In the light of this authority, the district court did not err by
prohibiting Mitchell from introducing evidence of the victims’
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 5 of 8

-- 5 of 8 --

6 Opinion of the Court 22-14153
other sexual behavior under Rule 412. Mitchell did not establish
how the introduction of that evidence was relevant; instead, he ap-
pears to have sought to use it only as propensity evidence to sug-
gest that, because the women had engaged in prostitution before,
he likely did not force or coerce them into engaging in commercial
sex acts. Apart from this restriction under Rule 412, Mitchell was
permitted wide ranging cross-examination as to the victims’ deal-
ings with him.
Even if the court did err in prohibiting evidence of the vic-
tims’ other sexual acts, any such error was harmless. See United
States v. Jones, 601 F.3d 1247, 1264 (11th Cir. 2010). Mitchell did not
establish that this testimony would have any serious effect on the
jury in light of the evidence against him. The government pre-
sented evidence that Mitchell physically assaulted the women,
threatened them, blackmailed them, and used their drug addictions
against them to force them to engage in commercial sex. No evi-
dence of the women’s prior sexual acts would give a reasonable
jury “a significantly different impression” of the women’s credibil-
ity regarding the force and coercion Mitchell used to cause them to
engage in commercial sex acts. Garcia, 13 F.3d at 1469. “In light of
all the evidence available to the jury, we can say with fair assurance
. . . that the judgment was not substantially swayed by” the district
court’s exclusion of the victims’ prior prostitution “and therefore
substantial rights were not affected.” Jones, 601 F.3d at 1264
(cleaned up).
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 6 of 8

-- 6 of 8 --

22-14153 Opinion of the Court 7
We also agree with the government that it did not open the
door for Mitchell to question the victims about their prior commer-
cial sex acts. The government asked the women questions about
the sex acts the women engaged in during their relationship with
Mitchell, not the victims’ entire sexual history. And Mitchell was
properly permitted to cross-examine the victims regarding their re-
lationship with him and sex acts they committed during that rela-
tionship. For these reasons, the district court did not violate Mitch-
ell’s rights under the Confrontation Clause when it prohibited the
introduction of evidence of the victims’ prior sexual acts under
Rule 412.
Mitchell next argues that the district court abused its discre-
tion when it allowed the government to introduce “bad act” evi-
dence regarding his drug dealing activities. Indeed, one way the
government sought to prove that Michell caused the victims to en-
gage in sex trafficking was that he used his position as a drug dealer
and access to drugs to recruit the women, increase and maintain
their addictions, and use those addictions to force them to engage
in commercial sex acts. Mitchell says the admission of that evidence
violated Rule 404(b), which prohibits the admission of extrinsic ev-
idence of a defendant’s wrongful acts to prove his character and
that he acted in accordance with that character. Fed. R. Evid.
404(b)(1).
However, Rule 404(b) deals only with the admissibility of
extrinsic evidence and does not cover intrinsic evidence. United
States v. Edouard, 485 F.3d 1324, 1344 (11th Cir. 2007). Evidence of
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 7 of 8

-- 7 of 8 --

8 Opinion of the Court 22-14153
criminal activity is intrinsic when it is “(1) an uncharged offense
which arose out of the same transaction or series of transactions as
the charged offense, (2) necessary to complete the story of the
crime, or (3) inextricably intertwined with the evidence regarding
the charged offense.” Id. Evidence is “inextricably intertwined”
when “it forms an integral and natural part of the witness’s ac-
counts of the circumstances surrounding the offenses for which the
defendant was indicted.” Id. (citations omitted).
The district court did not err in admitting evidence of Mitch-
ell’s drug dealing activity because that activity was “inextricably in-
tertwined” with the offenses he was charged with and was thus in-
trinsic evidence not subject to Rule 404(b). The evidence Mitchell
challenges established that he used his status as a drug dealer and
access to drugs to recruit women with drug addictions, increase
their addictions, then used those addictions to force them to en-
gage in commercial sex acts. He similarly introduced women to
drugs until they became addicted then used their addictions against
them to force them to engage in commercial sex acts. Thus, the
evidence of Mitchell’s drug dealing activities was key to the wit-
ness’s accounts of the commercial sex acts Mitchell caused them to
engage in through force and coercion. Because this evidence was
intrinsic and not subject to rule 404(b)’s prohibition, the district
court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence.
IV.
For the reasons stated above, the district court is
AFFIRMED.
USCA11 Case: 22-14153 Document: 52-1 Date Filed: 02/08/2024 Page: 8 of 8

-- 8 of 8 --