Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JUSTIN RIVERA, a/k/a “Denzel Rivera,” a/k/a “Bangout,” a/k/a “Jackie Chan,” was sentenced to 21 years in prison for conspiring to sex traffic two victims. RIVERA was convicted following an eight-day jury trial in June 2021 before United States District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, who imposed today’s sentence.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Justin Rivera was responsible for terrorizing young women and coercing them into engaging in commercial sex acts. After Rivera was convicted and in jail, he hatched a plan to subvert the judicial process by attempting to coerce one of his victims—who courageously testified at trial—into recanting her testimony. Today’s sentence holds Rivera accountable for his horrific crimes.”
According to court documents, the evidence presented trial, and the evidence presented at sentencing:
In 2015, RIVERA and his co-conspirators squatted at an abandoned house in Bohemia, New York, where they worked in concert to coerce the young women to engage in commercial sex acts, using false promises of romance, narcotics, violence, threats of violence, and psychological abuse. RIVERA physically assaulted one victim (“Victim-1”) on multiple occasions, pointed a gun at her head, and manipulated her heroin addiction by controlling her access to the drug. RIVERA also played the role of the conspiracy’s enforcer, including on one occasion threatening the mother of a victim (“Victim-2”) who came to the house in Bohemia in an attempt to rescue her daughter.
Both Victim-1 and Victim-2 testified at trial. Following RIVERA’s conviction, RIVERA engaged in witness tampering by conspiring to offer bribes and threaten Victim-1 to induce her to recant her testimony and falsely state that the Government coerced Victim-1 into falsely testifying at trial.
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In addition to today’s prison sentence, RIVERA, 32, of Amityville, New York, was sentenced to five years of supervised release.
Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York City Police Department, Suffolk County Police Department, and the Special Agents from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York for their assistance on this case.
The case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Daniel H. Wolf and Thomas S. Burnett are in charge of the prosecution.