Former Hartford Resident Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison for Child Sex Trafficking Offense

Deirdre M. Daly, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that Bruce Damico, 35, formerly residing in Hartford, Providence, Rhode Island, and Queens, New York, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in Bridgeport to 121 months of imprisonment, followed by 10 years of supervised release, for recruiting and transporting a minor to engage in prostitution.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Damico recruited, harbored, and transported women and girls to engage in prostitution. As a part of his prostitution business, Damico posted Internet advertisements offering the women and girls for commercial sex acts, and Damico was paid by each woman and girl $100 per day for maintaining the advertisements. Damico booked hotel rooms where the women and girls would engage in commercial sex acts, and he transported or arranged the transportation of the women and girls to prostitution appointments. Damico also sold drugs to the women and girls at inflated prices, often resulting in Damico obtaining all the money they made.

In pleading guilty, Damico admitted that between June 2009 and January 2010, his prostitution enterprise employed a girl who was under the age of 18. Damico posted pictures of the minor victim on the Internet to advertise her prostitution services, and he and others working for him transported the minor victim between Connecticut and surrounding states to engage in prostitution.

Damico has been detained since his arrest by the Bloomfield Police Department on January 22, 2010. On March 4, 2013, he pleaded guilty to one count of sex trafficking of a minor.

Judge Underhill ordered Damico to pay $10,000 in restitution to the minor victim.

This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bloomfield Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David E. Novick.