This article was provided to the Guilford Gazette by the Circuit Court of Howard County.
A College Park man, caught up in a police reverse prostitution operation last fall, pleaded guilty to a single count of attempted human trafficking this morning. Matthew Ezekial Bogle, 32 of the 9600 block of Milertone Way, was arrested at a Laurel hotel where he attempted to recruit an undercover police officer to travel to Virginia with him for the purpose of prostitution.
Eight would-be prostitution customers or johns were arrested for soliciting prostitution when they responded to vice and narcotics detectives’ fake advertisements on the website Backpage. Earlier this month, the FBI and additional federal law enforcement agencies seized the sex marketplace website and shut it down.
Bogle responded to one of the ads on October 30, exchanging text messages with a police detective posing as a prostitute. Assistant States Attorney Colleen McGuinn told the court that Bogle texted that his name was “New Money The P” which police recognized as a slang term for pimp. In subsequent texts Bogle promised better opportunities and better money could be realized if the woman were to work for him in Virginia.
Later that day Bogle traveled to a hotel located in the 9800 block of Washington Boulevard to personally recruit the woman. Detectives entered the room and arrested him. McGuinn stated that upon his arrest, Bogle told detectives that he was “just joking” and that he “didn’t mean all that.”
Bogle has no prior criminal record and sentencing guidelines called for a sentence between three months to four years in prison. Howard County Circuit Court Judge William V. Tucker sentenced Bogle to ten years in prison, suspending all but one year which will be served at the Howard County Detention Center. Upon release, he faces two years of supervised probation. The judge also ordered Bogle to refrain from using or accessing sexual solicitation websites.