A bail bondsman is facing criminal charges in Florida for allegedly approaching incarcerated women and offering to bond them out if they give him sex in return.

Russell Bruce Moncrief faces counts of human trafficking and racketeering – along with accusations that he used his authority within the criminal justice system to prey on particularly vulnerable women, said a recent news release from the office of the state’s attorney general, Ashley Moody.

Moody’s office said Moncrief, 75, would target women jailed on accusations involving sex work or drugs, including in Orange county, where Orlando is. He would propose posting their bonds to await the outcomes of their cases from out of custody if they agreed to have sex with him afterward, Moody’s office alleged.

The Moncrief Bail Bonds owner would also allegedly settle for “sex from someone outside of jail” as compensation for his scheme, prosecutors said. And he also purportedly would sexually proposition women whose bonds he posted to other buyers with whom he did business as part of what Moody’s office’s statement dismissed as a “sickening scheme”.

“After bailing his victims out of jail, he continued to use his power over them to sell the women for sex to others for his own financial gain,” the statement continued.

Moncrief would additionally threaten to revoke or pull the bonds of the women on whom he preyed – or to falsely accuse them of violations that would send them back into custody – to coerce their compliance, Moody’s office charged.

Moody’s office said authorities learned of Moncrief’s plot amid an investigation into a former defense attorney, John Gillespie, who was arrested on similar criminal allegations in 2020. Investigators alleged that victims of Gillespie had also been forced to engage in sex with Moncrief.

If convicted as charged, Moncrief could receive up to 125 years in prison, Moody’s office said. Investigators who built the case against Moncrief said his alleged bonds-for-sex ruse dated back at least a decade.

Moncrief was booked into the Orange county jail on Thursday, records show. According to Fox’s Orlando affiliate, at a preliminary court hearing, an attorney for him said: “It is Mr Moncrief’s position that he denies any and all allegations, and he looks forward to proving his innocence in court.”

Moncrief has reportedly been in the bail bond business since 1978. Beside Orange, his Moncrief Bail Bonds has offices in the Florida counties of Osceola, Brevard and Pinellas, as the Fox Orlando affiliate noted.