## Facts

- Federal investigators targeted a prostitution operation run from Southern California hotels involving women brought from Russia.
- An undercover officer responded to an adult advertisement and arranged for a woman, Elena Zimina, to be sent to a hotel for a stated hourly rate.
- Zimina arrived, engaged in conduct consistent with prostitution, and was arrested; she later testified she had been brought from Russia and put to work as a prostitute under Rashkovski and his wife’s direction.
- Zimina stated the defendants helped her enter the United States unlawfully via Mexico, housed her, set the pricing and revenue split, and threatened immigration consequences when she resisted prostitution.
- The § 2422(a) counts at issue involved two other Russian women, Svetlana Toulousheva and Irina Tsimbal.
- Rashkovski traveled with Toulousheva and Tsimbal to Mexico and attempted to bring them into the United States by car shortly after midnight on August 9; both claimed U.S. citizenship but could not speak English, leading to detention.
- Evidence indicated Toulousheva and Tsimbal wanted to come to the United States and did not subjectively intend to engage in prostitution at the time of travel.
- Rashkovski was convicted of, among other offenses, alien smuggling for financial gain, importation of aliens for prostitution or an immoral purpose, and inducing travel in foreign commerce to engage in prostitution.

## Issues

1. Whether sufficient evidence supported convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a) where the women already wanted to travel to the United States and lacked subjective intent to engage in prostitution.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion by denying Rashkovski’s motion to sever his trial from his co-defendant wife’s trial.
3. Whether, for sentencing under 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(2)(B)(ii), each smuggled alien may be treated as a separate violation.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentence.
- The court held the evidence was sufficient under § 2422(a) because the statute focuses on the defendant’s purpose in causing travel for prostitution, not the traveler’s preexisting desire to travel or subjective intent.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying severance because the evidence substantially overlapped and Rashkovski failed to show clear, manifest, or undue prejudice.
- The court upheld sentencing that treated each smuggled alien as a separate § 1324(a)(2)(B)(ii) violation.

## Legal Principles

- Under 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a), the government may prove “persuade, induce, entice, or coerce” by showing the defendant knowingly arranged or facilitated foreign travel with the purpose that the traveler engage in prostitution; the statute does not require proof that the traveler shared that purpose at the time of travel.
- A defendant is not entitled to severance absent a showing that a joint trial caused clear, manifest, or undue prejudice outweighing the usual preference for joint trials of co-participants in the same scheme.
- For 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(2)(B)(ii), the unit of prosecution may be each individual alien brought to the United States for commercial advantage or private financial gain, permitting separate counting of each alien at sentencing.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Rashkovski’s convictions and sentence, holding that § 2422(a) turns on the defendant’s purpose in arranging travel for prostitution rather than the women’s subjective intent, that joint trial with his co-defendant was not unduly prejudicial, and that each smuggled alien may be counted as a separate § 1324 violation for sentencing.


United States v. Rashkovski, 301 F.3d 1133 (9th Cir. 2002)