8/22/2013 – OKC, OK — A notorious Oklahoma pimp and human trafficker once featured on America’s Most Wanted has pleaded guilty to prostitution related crimes and been sentenced to not very much prison.
JohnTV has reported countless times on Mario Chavez Diaz and his mentor Germaine Coulter.
For years Diaz and Coulter ran a high profile and highly profitable human trafficking and prostitution ring that authorities allege made over $200,000 a month – literally off the backs of those they coerced, threatened, and victimized.
Court records detail how Diaz would often approach teenage girls at local malls (like Penn Square) and try to lure them into prostitution with promises of luxury living, fancy cars, jewelry and nice homes.
JohnTV has a long history of causing as much disruption to the Diaz/Coulter criminal enterprise as possible. Over the years JohnTV’s own Video Vigilante Brian Bates has had several of Diaz’s prostituted women arrested and has even confronted Diaz himself when he and a prostitute attacked another on South Robinson Ave.
In September of 2011 Diaz, Coulter and three women were charged with felony racketeering in regard to their alleged human trafficking and pimping activities and their efforts to conceal the hundreds of thousands in illegal profits.
Before the charges were even filed, Diaz had abandoned his $400,000 home in NW Oklahoma City and fled to Houston. There he is said to have continued his pimping of young women.
In May of 2012 Diaz was featured on America’s Most Wanted during a human trafficking special on the LifeTime channel (see video below).
Diaz was described during the Americas Most Wanted feature;
“Mario doesn’t know how to flip burgers. Mario doesn’t know how to deal dope. Mario doesn’t know how to do anything except be a pimp,” says Oklahoma City Detective Matt Martin. “And Mario’s going to continue to be a pimp until we put him in jail.”
Immediately after the airing Diaz was captured in Texas and extradited back to Oklahoma.
Even though Diaz has amassed a small fortune trafficking young women, he was allowed to force all of us to pay for his defense when he was granted a public defender.
Two years after charges were filed against him, Diaz pleaded guilty this past Tuesday to felony racketeering.
Brandi and Heather, both prostituted by Mario Diaz.
Normally this is the part where is justice is served – unfortunately, justice is often a rare thing in Oklahoma County.
Even though Diaz has spent much of his own life ruining the lives of those he preys upon, Oklahoma County Judge Ray Elliot and Oklahoma County assistant district attorney Jennifer Chance supported a sentence of only 10-years behind bars, followed by 10-years of supervised probation. To add insult to injury, Diaz was only issued a $50 fine and only ordered to pay $50 in victim’s compensation, plus court costs.
Additionally, this sentence was not just for the racketeering case. Prosecutors and Judge Elliot allowed two other felony cases against Diaz to be combined with this sentence – one felony case for a domestic assault and battery resulting in great bodily injury and another felony case for attempting to intimidate a witness into not testifying against him.
To put Diaz’s 10-year sentence into perspective…. Judge Ray Elliot in 2009 sentenced 56-year-old Cecilia Rodriguez to LIFE IN PRISON after she pleaded guilty to shoplifting two purses. Judge Elliot justified his sentence because Rodriguez was a drug addict with a long history of theft related crimes. According to published articles, Elliott says Rodriguez needed to be in prison for the rest of her life and called her a, quote, “one-person crime wave.”
Apparently Judge Elliot feels more compassion for handbags than for our daughters.
Diaz is also receiving credit for time already served and the courts have agreed to administrative review this sentence on Sept. 3, 2015. All-in-all this means Diaz may only serve an additional 7-8 years before he is released back into society.
JohnTV will continue to follow this case.
Additional Materials:
1.) Mario Diaz’s former Facebook page.
2.) Excerpt from court records – comments by a woman who had been pimped by Diaz in Texas.
3.) Excerpt from court records – partial transcript of a telephone call between Diaz and Heather regarding Brandi (see photo above).
4.) Excerpt from court records – Portion of a police report regarding Diaz trolling OKC malls looking for teens to prostitute.
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