Tag: sex trafficking

The Backpage Defendants Never Stood a Chance

Eighty-six counts of criminal activity—that’s what veteran journalist and publisher Michael Lacey faced in the federal case against him, a saga kicked off by federal agents raiding his house and shutting down a website he co-founded in 2004, Backpage. A saga that has stretched on for more than five years, through multiple judges, one mistrial, and the death of Lacey’s longtime business partner James Larkin. A case premised on a moral panic that previewed tactics threatening to all sorts of speech.

One count of international concealment money laundering—that’s the only charge of which a jury found Lacey guilty. Lacey’s offense? Moving money from a U.S. bank to a Hungarian bank in 2017.

Transferring money between bank accounts doesn’t seem like it should be a crime. Then again, neither does most of the underlying activity in this case—consensual hookups between adults; providing a platform for sex-worker speech; letting people pay for services with Bitcoin, and so on.

The Department of Justice claimed this was about “keeping women and children across America safe” from sex trafficking. But behind that bravado, the government’s actual case was clearly something less noble. A performance of protection. A publicity stunt. A massive scapegoating set against the backdrop of a moral panic. And a politicized prosecution against people who engaged in and defended the most dangerous thing to any government: free speech.

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Stacey Abrams’ brother-in-law arrested in Tampa for human trafficking, attacking teen: police

Jimmie Gardner, the brother-in-law of former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, was arrested on allegations of human trafficking, according to Tampa authorities.

Tampa police said they arrested the 57-year-old Friday for allegedly attempting to engage in sexual acts with a 16-year-old girl.

A release from the Tampa Police Department stated Gardner met the minor at 1:43 a.m. and invited her to his room at the Renaissance Hotel at International Plaza.

The girl accepted his invitation, and when she got there, he allegedly offered her money for sex, police said.

“The victim initially agreed but later told Gardner that she no longer wanted to engage and he became angry,” the release said. “Gardner advised the victim that she needed to leave his hotel room. The two got involved in a verbal altercation that escalated to a physical dispute after Gardner placed his hands around the victim’s neck, impeding her breathing. After the dispute, Gardner left the hotel room, and the victim called 911.”

When officers arrived, Gardner had already left the hotel, but they found the victim at the scene, according to police.

Meanwhile, police said Gardner reported to the Tampa Police District 1 Office. He was arrested on charges of human trafficking for commercial sexual activity (victim less than 18), lewd or lascivious touching of minor 16 or 17 years of age by person 24 years of age or older, and a misdemeanor count of battery.

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Abercrombie & Epstein? Ex-CEO Sued Over Gay Sex Trafficking, Abuse Allegations

Abercrombie & Fitch is being sued along with its former CEO Mike Jeffries, who has been accused of running a giant sex-trafficking ring that exploited young men who wanted to become models for the brand.

Court documents depict a horror story wherein Jeffries, the once-celebrated architect of the brand’s provocative image, is accused of masterminding the despicable sex trafficking operation. Under this scheme, young men, dazzled by the glamour of modeling stardom, were allegedly subjected to sexual abuse under the guise that it would land them coveted modeling contracts, CNBC reports.

Earlier this month, a BBC investigation revealed systematic abuse, involving Jeffries’ partner Matthew Smith and associate James Jacobson, under the pretense of offering modeling gigs.

The BBC’s two-year investigation involving 12 witnesses reveals a systematic operation spanning from the 1990s through 2015, where Jeffries, aided by Smith and a conspicuous associate identified as James Jacobson, allegedly lured young men into an abusive quagmire. The promise of lucrative modeling contracts with A&F baited the trap, often leading to coercive sexual encounters at various luxury locations worldwide, from New York to Marrakesh.

The narratives shared by these men, including David Bradberry, sketch a sinister picture. The operation, disguised behind the glamour of A&F’s brand allure, often began with meetings involving Jacobson. With his striking appearance marked by a snakeskin patch over a missing nose, Jacobson is accused of acting as the gatekeeper to A&F’s inner sanctum, demanding sexual favors as the price for entry.

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NYC family convicted of running sex trafficking ring using ‘threats of force, fraud and coercion,’ bribing cop with sexual favors

The Queens family that allegedly operated a years-long sex trafficking ring involving young women and girls from Mexico — and bribed an upstate cop to cover up their horrific offenses in exchange for sexual favors — was found guilty this week, federal officials said. 

Luz Elvira Cardona, 35, her partner Jose Facundo Zarate Morales, 34, as well as her mother Blanca Hernandez Morales, 53, and the older woman’s partner, Roberto Cesar Cid Dominguez, 60, were all found guilty Thursday after a four-week jury trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.

During the sick scheme, Cardona even paid for her 15-year-old niece — who lived in Mexico — to come to New York back in 2007 under the pretense that she could start working as a cleaner, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. 

But once the teen arrived in Queens, her aunt, along with Morales, brokered a deal with a client to sell her virginity.

She was then forced to engage in “commercial sex” with 20 or more men daily, officials said. 

The family’s nefarious plot began in 2002 when they pressured young women and girls – including one other minor besides Cardona’s niece – to come to the US with false promises of a better life, and work lined up for them, the jury heard.

Instead, they “used force, threats of force, fraud and coercion” to pressure their victims to engage in prostitution, prosecutors said. 

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Hide-and-Seek: Jeffrey Epstein Victim Virginia Giuffre Fighting Jane Doe’s Objection to Unsealing of Records

Jeffrey Epstein’s loudest victim Virginia Giuffre is battling a woman associated with a sex trafficking case who is fighting tooth and nail to remain anonymous, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.

Giuffre, who famously accused Prince Andrew of sexually molesting her as a teenager, filed court documents in Manhattan federal court seeking to unseal the name of the woman labeled as Jane Doe #133.

“Doe 133’s objections to unsealing are the same as those the Court has already rejected numerous times: that unsealing certain documents might be embarrassing, would expose nonparties to media attention, and could result in some unfortunate association between the non-parties and Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell,” Guffre’s renowned attorney Sigrid S. McCawley wrote in a legal brief.

“But as the Court has previously recognized, such generalized concerns about annoyance or embarrassment are insufficient to overcome the presumption of public access to judicial documents in a case of great public interest like this one.”

Jane Doe #133 is among hundreds of anonymous characters implicated or simply named in a now-settled 2015 defamation lawsuit Guffre filed against Epstein’s alleged pimp Maxwell — who was convicted of sex trafficking and is 20 years in federal prison – for publicly calling her a liar.

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Hunter Biden was suspected of hiring prostitutes from ‘Eastern European sex trafficking ring’ during drug binges and falsifying checks to pay the women, Treasury documents reveal

Bank investigators suspected Hunter Biden was associated with a ‘sex trafficking ring’ and falsified checks to pay prostitutes, Treasury documents reveal.

Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) reviewed by DailyMail.com show the First Son’s accounts were being monitored as late as December 2019, after investigators found payments from Hunter and his companies to a suspected ‘Eastern European prostitution ring’.

A previously unreported document, filed to the Department of the Treasury on December 17, 2019 by financial crime investigators at Wells Fargo, picked out 25 individuals linked to the suspected ring and almost $7million of suspicious transactions, some of which included checks from Hunter that they believed may have been falsified to hide his payments to hookers from his business account.

The report, shown to DailyMail.com by a confidential source, said ‘Biden has sent money to individuals who may be part of an Eastern European prostitution ring’, and that investigators were monitoring ‘several [Wells Fargo] customers suspected of participating in a sex trafficking ring associated with Biden’.

Others associated with the ring included women with Russian passports and a China-based company to which money was funneled.

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Bloodthirsty female kingpins of nationwide sex trafficking ring circulated videos showing brutal torture of rivals

The depraved ringleaders of a Queens-based, nationwide sex-trafficking and prostitution ring with “significant” ties to “China” posed for cheery selfies hours after a victim they targeted was “viciously beaten by a rolling pin,” prosecutors said.

The doe-eyed duo —  manager Yuan Yuan Chen and her boss Rong Rong Xu —  were part of a Flushing-based sex ring that extended all the way to Oregon and included hundreds of sex workers, most of whom were migrants from China forced to hand over their passports, according to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace.

Prosecutors said both women made numerous trips from Flushing’s Chinatown to China.

Yuan Yuan Chen, 30, was indicted on September 15 after Xu, 31, was arrested last year.

The selfie they took together — just hours after allegedly siccing enforcers on rival sex workers at a Kansas hotel in 2020 — was included in paperwork prosecutors filed to deny Chen bail

In “complete disregard for the victim,” the two women “posed for nearly a dozen ‘selfies,’  smiling and having fun, hours after the victim . . . had been viciously beaten with a rolling pin,” prosecutors wrote.

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Lawsuit Over Sex-Trafficked Teen Could Stop Schools From Hiding Kids’ Dysphoria

The mother of a Virginia teen sex-trafficked twice after her school concealed her newly asserted gender identity has filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against school staff and a Maryland public defender who alleged parental “misgendering” and abuse. The complaint was filed Aug. 22 in the Western District of Virginia court on behalf of Michele Blair by the Child and Parental Rights Campaign (CPRC) with support from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR).

It alleges that the defendants’ actions—first in withholding vital information about the girl’s gender identification and related assault in the boys’ bathroom, then later by falsely alleging abuse to deprive her mother of custody—resulted in the child’s ordeal at the hands of sexual predators not once, but twice. Blair v. Appomattox et al. will set critical precedents in two areas of roiling national debate: parental notification of gender transition in schools and parental custody relating to gender identity.

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A Cop Jailed Her for 2 Years on Fake Charges. Will She Ever Get Justice?

A Minnesota woman has resuscitated her effort to sue a police officer who jailed her as a teenager for two years on false charges associated with a sham sex trafficking investigation that the FBI once billed as its largest human trafficking crackdown. The case is another example of the legal labyrinth victims are required to navigate when attempting to get recourse after the government infringes on their rights and once again raises the question: How inoculated should those government officials be from civil suits for violating the Constitution?

Hamdi Mohamud’s odyssey began over a decade ago when St. Paul police officer Heather Weyker had her arrested on witness tampering charges concerning a woman named Muna Abdulkadir, who allegedly attacked Mohamud and her friends at knifepoint. Abdulkadir was crucial to Weyker’s sex-trafficking case, which, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit conceded, was “plagued with problems from the start.” Some of those problems included Weyker lying under oath, coercing witnesses, editing police reports, and making up evidence.

The groundless charges against Mohamud were ultimately dropped, but not until she spent about two years in federal prison, where those accused of federal crimes are typically held pretrial.

When Mohamud sued, Weyker was denied qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that makes it difficult to sue state and local government actors unless their alleged misconduct was “clearly established” in a prior court precedent. Yet the 8th Circuit in 2020 overturned that decision, citing Weyker’s position on a federal task force. Government employees at the federal level receive an even more muscular immunity.

“Qualified immunity makes it very, very difficult to sue government officials,” Patrick Jaicomo, an attorney at the Institute for Justice (I.J.), told me in 2021. “This makes it impossible.” The U.S. Supreme Court further strengthened that protection in June 2022.

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GOP donor Anton Lazzaro sentenced to 21 years for sex trafficking minors in Minnesota

A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges.

Anton “Tony” Lazzaro was found guilty in March by a federal jury of seven counts involving “commercial sex acts” with five girls ages 15 and 16 in 2020, when Lazzaro was 30. The charges carried mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years with a maximum of life in prison.

Prosecutors had requested a 30-year sentence for Lazzaro. They likened Lazzaro to financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested in 2019 on federal charges accusing him of paying underage girls for massages and then abusing them at his homes in Florida and New York. The defense asked for no more than 10 years.

“He’s a sex trafficker,” prosecutor Laura Provinzino said. “One who has shown absolutely no remorse. He has accepted no responsibility for his crimes.”

U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz came down in the middle and had harsh words for Lazzaro.

He said Lazzaro showed sympathy to only two people during the trial — “to himself and Jeffrey Epstein.” And the judge said he was struck by the “soulless, almost mechanical nature” of how Lazzaro exploited the girls.

“It’s almost as if Mr. Lazzaro set up a sex trafficking assembly line,” Schiltz said.

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