'Liars, wh***s and strippers': Lawyer for violent pimp who lured beautiful young victims into prostitution says the girls were 'bawdy' and sex trafficker is the VICTIM of the 17th century African slave trade



Damion St Patrick Baston faces life in prison for sex trafficking

Baston was found guilty on 21 charges of trafficking girls from the Gold Coast to Dubai and Miami



Baston posed as a music entrepreneur but was a stripper, conman and violent pimp



He enslaved girls and used the cash they earned from sex to buy diamonds and designer clothes

His Miami lawyer now claims the girls trapped Baston with 'sexual lust', were 'non-chaste' and liars

David Rowe says Jamaican national Baston is a victim of the 17th century slave trade which used 'black African studs'

The violent pimp who wore fur coats, gold chains, designer clothes and a $75,000 diamond watch bought from the earnings of the girls he turned into international sex slaves, has claimed he is a victim of 'lusty' girls and the African slave trade.

Damion St Patrick Baston, a former male stripper, conman and Jamaican nightclub dancer also known as 'Daddy', is facing life imprisonment in the tough Federal Detention Centre in Miami, Florida.

His attorney Davie Rowe claimed the women Baston enslaved were in fact 'extroverted women highly motivated by sexual lusts'.



'Call me Daddy': Damion St Patrick Baston (pictured) loved designer clothes, the colour red and pretended he was a designer and entrepreneur. In reality, he was a violent pimp and sex trafficker who ran a prostitution racket from the Gold Coast to Miami via the Middle East - but his lawyer now claims he was 'the victim' Friend's plea: Ella Mickles (pictured) who is a friend of Damion Baston and was briefly his girlfriend agrees with his attorney in saying that it was the Gold Coast woman known in court as KL who was the mastermind behind the prostitution business called The Bachelor Club and that Baston is good guy and not the violent convicted sex trafficker he has been portrayed as

He's misunderstood: Gold Coast model, Ella Mickles (pictured), who travelled with Damion Baston to the US as his girlfriend, said he is really a lovely person and not the violent pimp as portrayed in his trial on 21 charges of sex trafficking, fraud and money laundering. She hopes the judge will give him a sentence of far less than the 15 year minimum he faces Damion Baston (pictured, left with a gun and right, with a fur and Australian cash) is a Jamaican-born pimp who pretended he was hip hop manager but operated a global sex trafficking network and used an elaborate ploy convinced beautiful young Australians to become prostitutes and give him the profits. His lawyer says he is a victim of the African slave trade to Jamaica in the 17th century

His attorney David Rowe made the outlandish claims about the Australian, New Zealand and US woman the 37-year-old Baston turned into high-end prostitutes in a bid to sway Judge Cecilia Altonaga, who is preparing to sentence Baston in the Miami District Court.

Baston faces a sentence of between 15 years and life in prison after Judge Altonaga's court found him guilty on 21 charges including sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, importation of an alien for prostitution, transportation for prostitution, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Six young women, including two Australians, a New Zealander, a Lithuanian and two American girls gave evidence to the court of the life of prostitution and stripping for money he indoctrinated them into. In July, a jury took just six hours to convict him. Wrong motive: Gold Coast model Ella Mickles (pictured) said one of the witnesses in her friend Damion Baston's sex trafficking trial was motivated by trying to save her herself after police in in Queensland began investigating her escort agency. She said she never saw Damion behave violently to anyone Stolen identity: One of the few pieces of ID in which Damion Baston used his actual identity (above, left) and one example of the fake ID (above, right) which Baston stole from an Ohio forklift driver to become Rayshawn Bryant and assume US nationality, gaining him a passport on which he travelled around the world and earned money from the sex trade Intimidation: Damion Baston portrayed himself during his sex trafficking trial in Florida as a romantic and kind man, but he used violence and intimidation to subdue women, including the gang motto of the LA Bloods (pictured, on his red cap) to enslave women and threaten their families with violence Part of the evidence before the court was Baston's 'pimp manifesto' with which he persuaded young women to be 'hoes' - whores - instead of 'f***ing for free' with their boyfriends. His methods as revealed byDaily Mail Australia, included convincing the girls that they were like a deluxe car, 'be the Rolls Royce, not the Hyundai or the Civic parked at the metre around the corner'. Photographs obtained from the Florida District Court showed Baston toting high-powered semi-automatic weapons, lying in bed covered in Australian bank notes, posing in a fox fur with a fistful of $100 bills, and wearing a bizarre pair of gold fangs. But his lawyer insists that it was the girls' fault, describing the victims as 'non-chaste women, fully acquainted with escort services and the bawdiness of dancing in exotic nightclubs'.

'These women are not sexual victims,' Rowe wrote in a sentencing motion.

'They are extroverted women highly motivated by sexual lusts, and, by nature, lie, play and deceive.'

He's the victim: With his client facing life imprisonment in the Federal Detention Centre in Miami (pictured), Florida attorney David Rowe has argued that the women Damion Baston enslaved 'are not sexual victims. They are extroverted women highly motivated by sexual lusts, and, by nature, lie, play and deceive' Photographs of convicted sex trafficker Damion St Patrick Baston tendered during his trial in Florida include this bizarre picture of him wearing a set of gold fangs (above, left). A more recent mugshot by Florida police of Damion Baston (above, right) after his arrest in 2013, six months before he faced a Florida court and was convicted on 21 charges including sex trafficking using force

Evidence: Photographs tendered to the court show Damion Baston lying in bed in Australia, where he ran a call girl business on the Gold coast, covered in Australian $100 bank notes Part of Damion Baston's fantasy about living the life of a high-flying pimp with young girls as his sex slaves was the gold Rolls Royce which he drove during his four years operating a sex trafficking business in Australia, the Middle East and Miami Prosecutors told the jury Baston beat, threatened and raped the women and kept the hundreds of thousands of dollars they made as prostitutes.

Baston's pimping began on Queensland's Gold Coast, but led to the Middle East and the US.

One of the Australian victims, known in court as KL, met Baston in 2011 in a Gold Coast restaurant, a relationship blossomed, but then Baston used violence to force her into prostitution.

Rowe painted another picture.

'The defendant became highly intoxicated with KL, who, in turn found the stud of her dreams,' the lawyer wrote.

Damion St Patrick Baston took steroids and was addicted to designer clothes, fur coats, gold chains and earning cash from the women he pimped and he kept a copy of the book Pimpology (above, right) in his belongings. But he turned it to his own sinister ends, beating and subduing women

International pimping operation: Damion Baston took girls to Dubai where they stayed in luxury hotels like the Jumeirah Dubai. He forced his victims to work as prostitutes and strippers on the Gold Coast and in Florida

Florida strip: Damion Baston took Australian girls over to Florida where he made them work in strip clubs like the Shark Club (pictured) and later service clients with sex for cash which he kept, making hundreds of thousands of dollars Rowe described KL as the 'brainchild' of their Gold Coast prostitution service, Bachelors Club.

The other Australian victim, TJM, was 18 when she met Baston at a party in Queensland in 2009 and they married in an Islamic ceremony in 2010.

In 2011, he was prostituting TJM and KL out of several Gold Coast rental properties.

Baston also took KL to Dubai in 2011 where she made large sums of cash as a prostitute and then they travelled to Miami, Florida, where he continued to pimp her. Prosecutors said Baston kept the hundreds of thousands of dollars the women made and would then show off the cash with Instagram photos of his $250,000 bank balance and $75,000 diamond-studded watch.

Grand plans: Baston's plan was to open an escort agency in southern Florida and he took Australian girls over there to work the strip in 'gentlemen's clubs' like Cheetah's (pictured)



Ella Mickles (pictured) says she doesn't want the wrong image of Damion St Patrick Baston portrayed and that it was 'breaking mine and his family's heart to have his name trampled on like this.'It is hurting Damion so much he wants to change his name to escape his past and the person people are talking about'

Unbeknown to authorities Damion Baston rented apartments on the Gold Coast and illegally ran an escort business from them using string of women, some of whom he violently abused Rowe said Baston was also a product of the treatment of male slaves in Jamaica in the 17th and 18th Century. 'Sociologically, the defendant is another product of the antecedent Jamaican mores in which strong, healthy, black males were alienated from families and used as studs to breed African slaves,' he wrote.

One young woman who had a brief relationship with Baston and travelled briefly with him to the US as a friend and partner, also claims that the Gold Coast woman KL was the mastermind behind the Gold Coast brothel business. Ella Mickles described Baston as 'a beautiful person' and 'one of the most amazing kind hearted [people] I have ever met'.

Ms Mickles, 22, of Burleigh on the Gold Coast said Baston was innocent of any wrongdoing apart from some minor infringements. Ella never worked for him or was involved in his business.



Clubs like Cheetah's (pictured) were Damion St Patrick Baston's playground, but he hid the fact he was trafficking girls and pocketing all their earnings which he kept in a Louis Vuitton bag and banked the profits in fake accounts around the world

Convicted sex trafficker Damion Baston's lawyer is arguing in the Florida District Court (pictured) that the man prosecutors describe as 'a violent pimp who used the stolen identity of an American citizen to travel the world recruiting, prostituting and violently abusing women everywhere that he went' is really just misunderstood. Attorney David Rowe says he was lured by lying, lusty women who were 'non-chaste' and manipulative She blamed Baston's convictions on the 'jealousy' of 26-year-old KL. KL told the Florida court Baston forced her into dancing in strip clubs and selling her body to men and then moved her and a New Zealand girl to Dubai to earn money as prostitutes.

But Ms Mickles said KL was the madam who ran the brothel and Baston was 'just the driver and body guard'. 'Damion is a lovely person who never showed me any violence and I never saw him violent with any of the girls,' Ms Mickles told Mailonline.



In an online post she made after Damion Baston's conviction in a Florida court, Ella Mickles (pictured) describes her friend as a 'beautiful person'. She told Mailonline 'it is breaking mine and his familiy's heart to have his name trampled on'

'He was caring and took care of me. It was [KL] who knew all about the escort business and Damion who had the contacts in exotic dancing places in America.

'They were going to set up business there, but then she go into trouble in Australia and she turned him in to take the heat of herself.



'And she was in love with him. I warned Damion that one day it would bite him on the a**e. I am determined to help him so the truth can be told.



'Some of the girls went a bit further, but that was their ambition or they needed the money,' Ms Mickles said. She said one of the girls, who came from New Zealand, wanted to earn escort money because 'her mother had HIV and she needed to pay for that.

Ms Mickles said she travelled with Baston to Dallas and Miami as his romantic partner, but left after two days.

'One of the girls said he was sleeping with her. I said to him he wasn't ready [for commitment]. I'd given him the money for my ticket.'

Ella Mickles told Dail Mail Australia she hoped to give testimony as to his good character at the sentence hearing, so that he wouldn't spend much time in jail.

'I don't want the wrong image of him portrayed anymore than it has been,' she said.

'It is breaking mine and his family's heart to have his name trampled on like this.

'It is hurting Damion so much he wants to change his name to escape his past and the person people are talking about.'

Baston will be sentenced on September 29.

