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A man arrested by Mountain View police earlier this month following a domestic violence incident is also facing charges of soliciting the victim for prostitution over the course of multiple years, according to court records.
Jamal Potts, 23, of North Las Vegas, was taken into custody on June 5 after police arrived at the victim’s family home after a neighbor reported a possible domestic disturbance. Police records indicate that Potts had pushed, punched and strangled the woman. He also prevented the victim from leaving and kept her from calling for help, according to the investigative report.
Potts was previously accused of pushing the woman into a bathtub while she was six months pregnant and of strangling her on four or five separate occasions, according to the report. Records also reveal that Potts had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant out of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police for domestic violence with strangulation, issued in October last year.
The officer responding to the incident was already familiar with Potts following an alleged domestic violence incident involving strangulation about a month prior, according to the police report. That incident was handled by the CHP due to its location on a Highway 101 off-ramp at Shoreline Boulevard, details of which are not included in court records.
Potts remains in custody, and his bail is set at $1 million.
According to the police report, Potts and the woman had been dating since they met in 2019 at a nightclub in Las Vegas. They have one child in common, who currently resides in Las Vegas with Potts’ mother.
Eventually, Potts allegedly told the victim he needed to sell her for sexual acts to earn him money. The prostitution occurred in San Francisco and Las Vegas over the years, the woman told police. At one point the victim said she was raped during a sexual service in San Francisco a couple years ago.
The victim said she’s changed her phone number frequently, almost every one to two months, because Potts continues contacting her. According to the report, she estimated that she changed her phone number approximately five times between January 2023 to June 2023 and approximately seven times in 2022. Potts always managed to find and contact her through social media.
“Potts paid for all the expenses and exercised control of the finances,” the report said. When the victim received money from sexual clients, she would give the money to Potts.
He often fed her only one meal a day with some snacks throughout the day, according to the police report. “How much she ate depended on how much Potts ate. (She) knew that Potts was using cocaine and that affected his appetite,” Officer Angelica Espitia wrote in her report.
The June 5 arrest allegedly started with an argument that escalated when the victim locked him out of her bedroom. Potts then “began banging on the door demanding she let him in. (She) knew he would only continue, so she opened the door in (an) attempt to diffuse the situation,” the report said.
At that point, Potts pushed her, knocking her onto her bed and causing an abrasion on her chest, according to the account in court documents. He then grabbed her by the sides and squeezed her ribcage, which is something he had previously done to her and told her he did because it “allowed him to gain control.”
He then strangled her for about two seconds, which she noted was not nearly as painful as the recent Shoreline incident, in which she described the strangulation pain as a nine out of ten (ten being needed to be hospitalized). When “Potts was on top of (her), she told him, ‘Please get off, I can’t breathe right now,’ several times,” Officer Pizarro wrote in her report.
Potts denied strangling or punching the victim as well as blocking her from leaving. Following the most recent incident between Potts and the victim, a judge issued an emergency protective order against Potts.
Potts is facing domestic violence charges including one count of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, as well as one count each of human trafficking, pimping and compelling someone into prostitution. He is scheduled for a plea hearing on July 5.
