{"id":21784,"date":"2013-06-06T15:56:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T19:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21784"},"modified":"2013-06-06T15:56:26","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T19:56:26","slug":"strip-club-visit-may-draw-20-year-prison-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21784","title":{"rendered":"Strip Club Visit May Draw 20-Year Prison Sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong>A Pinellas County man who reportedly violated the terms of his probation is facing 20 years in prison. However, his attorney has asked the judge to reduce the sentence.<\/p>\n<p><strong> Charles Melvin Fox,<\/strong> 38, was arrested in July 2011 on numerous charges that included sex trafficking, deriving support from the proceeds of prostitutions, and unlawful use of two-way communications, among others.<\/p>\n<p>According to Tampa Police <strong>Detective Mike Victor,<\/strong> the victims were very afraid of <strong>Fox<\/strong> and agreed to a plea agreement. <strong>Fox <\/strong>was given 10 years of probation on the charges. He was sentenced in January 30, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was given a very, very, very lenient sentence. Some of the girls had started new lives, some had formed successful relationships, and they just didn\u2019t want to relive it. He ruined their lives. So they agreed to the plea agreement,\u201d <strong>Detective Victor<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Detective Victor <\/strong>said <strong>Fox<\/strong> came on his radar in 2009 while he was investigating other cases of sex trafficking. He said <strong>Fox<\/strong> had about 6 women he was forcing into prostitution at that time.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Tampa Police were called to the Scores Gentlemen\u2019s Club on North Dale Mabry in reference to a fight. Detective <strong>Victor<\/strong> said when police arrived, <strong>Fox<\/strong> had his shirt off and was very uncooperative with police. The officer noted that <strong>Fox <\/strong>was on probation and had left Pinellas County.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Detective Victor<\/strong> said the club, among others was one of the places <strong>Fox <\/strong>recruited women for prostitution. He also said <strong>Fox<\/strong> transported women across state lines to commit the crime.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI tracked him all across the country beginning in 2009. He came here from California, and was active in prostitution for at least a couple of years before that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks after the fight at the strip club, <strong>Fox <\/strong>was once again out of Pinellas County without permission when the Hillsborough County Sheriff\u2019s Office reportedly stopped and ticketed him on a traffic infraction, <strong>Detective Victor<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n<p>According to jail records, <strong>Fox<\/strong> was arrested on March 28<sup>th<\/sup> and charged with violation of probation. He appeared before Hillsborough County <strong>Judge Chet Thorpe <\/strong>on May 21<sup>st<\/sup>, and was sentenced to 20 years in Florida State Prison.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Cox,<\/strong> spokesman for the Hillsborough County State Attorney\u2019s Office said the judge can agree to the reduction of the sentence or decide to let it stand. If he lets it stand, then the attorney representing <strong>Fox<\/strong> will have to file an appeal to the sentence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor A Pinellas County man who reportedly violated the terms of his probation is facing 20 years in prison. However, his attorney has asked the judge to reduce the sentence. Charles Melvin Fox, 38, was arrested in July 2011 on numerous charges that included sex trafficking, deriving support from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}