Man who posed as porn producer looks to Seventh Circuit to overturn sex trafficking convictions

CHICAGO (CN) — A Chicagoland man maintained to a Seventh Circuit panel Thursday that he never intended to traffic with whom he had sex — he only intended to defraud them.

Brian Johnson was convicted on seven counts of sex trafficking in 2024 and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Johnson appealed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, which affirmed his conviction. He was charged after he posed as an adult entertainment executive online and recruited women to “audition” for roles in pornographic films. At these auditions, Johnson took explicit videos and photos of the women and also frequently had sex with them.

The women who responded to Johnson’s Craigslist ads were often young and under financial duress. When they called him out as a fraud, Johnson threatened to publish their intimate pictures and videos online. During trial, however, the government presented no evidence that the content was ever sold commercially or posted online.

The statute Johnson was convicted under “defines ‘commercial sex act’ [as] any sex act, on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.’ Thus, if sexual gratification is a thing of value, then all sex is commercial sex, which leads to an absurd result,” Johnson’s attorney Leonard Goodman wrote in the appellant’s brief. “This court will avoid reading a statute in a way that leads to ’linguistic absurdity.’”

Maureen Merin, an attorney on behalf of the government, maintained before the Seventh Circuit panel that Johnson’s actions amounted to sex trafficking because he promised them financial gain if they had sex with him. She argued during his trial that he received value from these sex acts not only in the form of the pictures and videos he kept but also his own sexual gratification.

Goodman, however, argued his client’s false promises didn’t equate to “commercial sex acts” because no money changed hands, and the explicit films and photos were never distributed or published.

“The legislative history shows that there is a focus on trafficking, human trafficking and the use of sex slaves, and that is not present in this case,” Goodman said. “It’s undisputed that this was more akin to somebody on a dating app who says, if I go on a dating app and I pose as a Saudi prince and I tell women that they can be wealthy if they succumb to my advances.”

In its affirmation of Johnson’s conviction, the only analogous case the District Court cited to support its conclusion that promising career advancement makes sex commercial was Noble v. Weinstein, which was the civil “casting couch” case against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Goodman argued in the appellant’s brief that Weinstein’s promises of career advancements actually held water, whereas Johnson had no power, influence or wealth. Johnson had nothing of value to offer his victims, only fraud, he wrote in the brief.

“If I invested $100,000 in a horse farm in Kentucky, and the horse farm doesn’t exist, I have received nothing of value in exchange for my money,” Goodman said before the three-judge panel.

The judges pressed Goodman on how he’d define “nothing of value” in the scope of the sex trafficking statute.

“Would it matter to you?” U.S. Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve, a Donald Trump appointee, asked. “What if your client had actually paid these women?”

“Well, it would be a more difficult case if he had,” Goodman responded.

“So, is your argument hinging on that just a promise cannot be a thing of value?” St. Eve asked.

“Well, it’s not; A false promise is not a thing of value,” Goodman said. “Now, if he had paid them, the government would certainly have a stronger argument that this fits within the definition of commercial sex.”

Merin maintained that Johnson’s promises to the women qualified as a thing of value to them because they were under the impression that he was, in fact, an influential adult film producer. St. Eve and fellow Trump appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Scudder Jr. pressed Merin on the limitations on determining a thing of value.

“I believe the limit would have to be in the commercial nature, or the business nature of the scheme,” she responded. “There’s a qualitative difference between what happened here and what happens when you have somebody who is a prostitute, who is not procured by fraud in the sense of they’re not brought to that place, they’re there walking the street or wherever on the app, knowing what they’re getting into, knowing what the business propositions are. Where here, everything was a total artifice.”

“In other words, he created a commercial market?” U.S. Circuit Judge Kenneth Ripple, a Ronald Reagan appointee, chimed in.

“Yes, he created a market, and the product of that market wasn’t just sex,” Merin said. “It was ‘we’re going to make adult films, and you’re gonna get rich.’”

Goodman reiterated that Johnson’s actions don’t fit squarely with the legal definition of sex trafficking. He maintained that, if anything, Johnson should be convicted on fraud charges, like in the 1979 Fourth Circuit case* United States v. Condolon*.

The panel of judges did not indicate when it might issue a ruling on the matter.

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