The Jamaican man hit with 21 charges relating to the pimping and beating of a string of women from South Florida, the Middle East and Australia, has been found guilty by a 12-member jury in Miami.

The man, Damion St. Patrick Baston, shook his head in disbelief when a federal judge read the 21 guilty verdicts.

Damion Baston denied being an international pimp and human trafficker when he took the witness stand in a federal court in Miami last week.

Baston spent three days on the witness stand attempting to convince jurors that he was a businessman who had been set up by women who were upset at his decision to end the relationships.

But the jurors did not believe him, saying afterward that he shouldn’t have taken the witness stand.

The foreman of the jury told the Miami Herald that Baston didn’t do himself any favours by speaking in his own defence.

Another juror said the prosecution’s evidence was overwhelming.

The jury’s verdicts, after a two-week trial, could result in a maximum life sentence for the Jamaican, who was charged last year with sex trafficking, money laundering and other crimes.

At the very least, Baston faces a minimum-mandatory sentence of 15 years when he appears before US District Judge Cecilia Altonaga on September 5.

US Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said the investigation, a collaboration of American, Australian and United Arab Emirates law enforcement agencies, led to the first US prosecution under a 2008 law intended to combat international sex trafficking.

Raised for part of his childhood in New York City, Baston was deported from the United States in the late 1990s for having a prior criminal conviction.

Two years ago, he arrived in Miami with an Australian woman and an American woman.

Prosecutors say he used psychological coercion and physical abuse against them to pick up men at South Florida strip clubs.

Assistant US Attorney Roy Altman told jurors during closing arguments last Friday that Baston was a monster who bragged about being a member of the Los Angeles based street gang, the Bloods, to frighten the women.

Baston’s attorney, Florida based Jamaican David Rowe, argued that his client did nothing wrong.

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