Deriving Support from Prostitution. Evidence, Authentication, Hearsay. Practice, Criminal, Argument by prosecutor, Instructions to jury, Failure to object. At the trial of indictments charging, inter alia, deriving support from the earnings of a prostitute, there was sufficient evidence from which a rational trier of fact could find that the defendant shared in the earnings of a prostitute, despite the fact that the defendant was arrested before receiving any of the money paid by an undercover police officer to a prostitute who was being trafficked by the defendant, where there was evidence that a share of the money was the defendant's, by prior arrangement, as soon as it was paid by the officer to the prostitute.
At the trial of indictments charging deriving support from the earnings of a prostitute and trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, there was no substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice in the unopposed admission in evidence of a website advertisement for sexual services that was authenticated by the testimony of an undercover police officer and of women trafficked by the defendant.
At the trial of indictments charging deriving support from the earnings of a prostitute and trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, a specific unanimity jury instruction was not required when the prosecution was based on an ongoing course of conduct by the defendant offering sexual services of various women []; further, certain statements in the prosecutor's closing argument were permissibly based in admitted evidence.
On appeal from his convictions of trafficking of persons for sexual servitude and deriving support from the earnings of a prostitute, the defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the latter charge, because police placed him. On the evidence in the case before us, we conclude that the interruption of the transaction before the defendant gained physical possession of his share of the proceeds does not bar his conviction on a charge of deriving support from a prostitute, as a share of the money was his, by prior arrangement, as soon as it was paid by the officer to one of the women trafficked by the defendant.
Discerning in the defendant's other claims [Note 1] no cause to disturb the judgments, we affirm. We summarize the evidence the jury could have found, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth.
