Tag: sex trafficking

Teen arrested in connection with GOP strategist’s alleged sex trafficking scheme

A 19-year-old college student has been arrested in connection with an alleged trafficking scheme involving a ​​Minneapolis-based GOP strategist and PAC founder. 

According to jail records, Gisela Castro Medina was booked by the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department in Florida, where a recent Instagram post revealed she had been vacationing. 

The Okaloosa Department of Corrections said that she was on hold to be transferred to the FBI in Minnesota under the same charges federal authorities brought against Anton “Tony” Lazzaro: sex trafficking of a minor, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and obstruction of justice. 

Records revealed that Castro Medina was denied bond and was released to be transferred to another agency on Friday. 

The indictment released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota on Thursday had listed a second individual charged in the case along with Lazzaro, though the person’s name had been redacted. 

The Hill has reached out to the U.S. attorney’s office for additional information. 

Castro Medina, a student at the Catholic University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, had recently assumed the role of chair of her school’s chapter of the Minnesota College Republicans, the group said in a statement posted on Twitter on Saturday. 

The group’s statewide chair, Nia Moore, said in the press release that she had been informed that Castro Medina “was arrested alongside Anton Lazzaro.” 

“We as an organization are absolutely disgusted by the actions of Ms. Medina, and have cut all ties with her effective immediately,” she added. 

“Our prayers go out to the victims of Anton Lazzaro and Gisela Medina — we believe you,” the College Republicans chair wrote. “We stand with you. May justice be served.” 

It was not immediately clear if Castro Medina has an attorney representing her in the case. 

The Daily Beast on Saturday first reported news of the 19-year-old’s arrest. 

According to the indictment filed this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, authorities said Lazzaro allegedly conspired with others to recruit and solicit minors to participate in commercial sex acts. 

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“He Takes Care Of The Little Girls” – Leon Black’s Ex-Mistress Shares Explosive New Details About “Best Friend” Jeffrey Epstein

A couple of weeks ago, we reported on the latest court filing made by Russian model Guzel Ganieva in her lawsuit against Leon Black. In the filing, she accused him of paying her millions of dollars in money and gifts in exchange for keeping the affair quiet.

But an amended filing released Monday includes even more explosive claims about Black’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Black has already been forced out of Apollo, the private equity giant he co-founded, months earlier than he had originally planned, despite an internal probe finding that his friendship with Epstein didn’t extend beyond his decision to pay him more than $150MM for tax advice. While many have speculated that Black’s explanation was a ruse (and a thin one at that), Ganieva makes several explosive new claims, hinting for the first time that Black knew exactly what Epstein was up to, while not directly accusing him.

In the amended filing, Ganieva alleges that Black “made multiple comments to Ganieva about Epstein’s sexual proclivities.” Black allegedly told Ganieva that Epstein flew “very young girls” aboard his private plane…and while the lawsuit doesn’t explicitly accuse Black of knowing that the girls Epstein trafficked were underage…it does claim that Black told Ganieva that Epstein made his money because he “takes care of the little girls” and was “doing a great job with it.”

She also claimed that she herself was trafficked to Epstein, saying that Black flew her to Florida in 2008 “without her consent, to satisfy the sex needs of Epstein, Black’s “best friend.”

Black’s legal team maintains that Ganieva’s account is a “work of fiction,” according to a report in Vanity Fair.

Black’s attorney, Dayna Perry, said in regard to the new claims that “Ms. Ganieva had six years to prepare her initial complaint in this case … She now claims to recall in August supposedly crucial events and connections that somehow had slipped her mind at the time of her June filing. But just like her June complaint, Ms. Ganieva’s story today is demonstrably and transparently false and betrays her willingness to say anything and fabricate a story in the hope something will stick.”

But Ganieva’s lawyers are reportedly subpoenaing flight records to see if they can prove she traveled with Black to Florida in October 2008. Evidence of this flight could be bad for Black, though we imagine his legal team will dismiss the records as irrelevant.

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Android Creator Andy Rubin Accused Of Running ‘Sex Ring,’ Defrauding Wife

The estranged wife of Andy Rubin has accused the former Google executive who invented the Android operating system of defrauding her of millions of dollars and squandering money on affairs and a “sex ring.”

In court documents unsealed by a California judge this week, Rie Rubin, who married Rubin in 2009, claims her husband spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on sexual favors and “affairs with multiple women” during their marriage.

These affairs, her lawsuit says, included ”‘ownership’ relationships with other women, whereby Rubin would pay for their expenses in exchange for offering them to other men.” 

The complaint also accuses Rubin ― who left Google in 2014 after a female subordinate accused him of sexual assault ― of running a “sex ring” involving at least one woman. The woman, identified as “M” in the documents, would “agree to perform various sexual acts with multiple men” which would be filmed for “the enjoyment of Rubin and other men,” according to the documents. 

“After these orgies, Rubin would himself have sex with ‘M’ off-camera,” the complaint alleges. 

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Facebook censors those who spread ‘misinformation,’ but looks the other way while pimps abuse children

Before losing a recent landmark court case, Facebook attempted to distance itself from the human trafficking taking place on its platform. If only it were as hands-on about child sex crimes as it is about political speech.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Facebook can be held liable for the conduct of pimps and traffickers on its platform – a landmark decision that opens the firm up to further legal action from a trio of teenage trafficking victims. 

In the suit, filed in 2018, the three young women accused the company of running “an unrestricted platform to stalk, exploit, recruit, groom, and extort children into the sex trade.” One was 15 when an older man contacted her on Facebook, offered her a modeling job, photographed her, posted the pictures on the now-defunct BackPage website, and prostituted her to other men, leading her to be “raped, beaten, and forced into further sex trafficking.” The other two girls were 14, and reported almost identical experiences, with one openly pimped out for “dates” on Instagram, a Facebook subsidiary.

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Former ‘Smallville’ Actress Speaks Out Before Sentencing For Role In Sex Cult: ‘Biggest Mistake And Regret Of My Life’

Allison Mack, best known for playing Chloe Sullivan on “Smallville,” is about to be sentenced for her role in recruiting and blackmailing women into joining the NXIVM sex cult.

In a letter to the court, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Mack addressed “those who have been harmed by my actions,” apologizing for what she had done.

“It is now of paramount importance for me to say, from the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry,” she wrote.

“I threw myself into the teachings of Keith Raniere with everything I had,” she added. “I believed, whole-heartedly, that his mentorship was leading me to a better, more enlightened version of myself. I devoted my loyalty, my resources, and, ultimately, my life to him. This was the biggest mistake and regret of my life.”

Mack added that she would dedicate the rest of her life to undoing the harm her actions have caused.

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Most online recruitment in sex trafficking cases occurs on Facebook: analysis

The majority of online recruitment in sex trafficking cases last year took place on Facebook, according to a new report.

The Human Trafficking Institute on Tuesday said in its annual report that 59 percent of online recruitment of victims occurred on Facebook, along with 65 percent of child victims.

“The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites,” Victor Boutros, CEO of the Human Trafficking Institute, told CBS News on Wednesday.

“Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases,” he added.

In a statement to CBS News, Facebook said: “Sex trafficking and child exploitation are abhorrent and we don’t allow them on Facebook. We have policies and technology to prevent these types of abuses and take down any content that violates our rules.”

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Matt Gaetz’s Wingman Claims the Congressman Paid for Sex With a 17-Year-Old

Matt Gaetz is back in the news, a now-frequent occurrence which, despite the all-press-is-good-press ethos around which he built his political career, hasn’t exactly been a boon to the Florida congressman’s brand over the past month or so.

The Daily Beast reported Thursday night that it obtained a letter in which Joel Greenberg, Gaetz’s now notorious running buddy, admitted that he and the embattled congressman paid a 17-year-old girl for sex. The letter was sent to former Trump adviser Roger Stone as part of an attempt to get him to lobby the then-president for a pardon. Stone confirmed to The Daily Beast that Greenberg had indeed sought his help in securing a pardon, and that he asked Greenberg to provide him with “a document explaining his prosecution.”

Greenberg has been charged with a mind-boggling array of crimes, leading to his resignation last summer as Seminole County, Florida’s tax collector. The 33 charges against Greenberg include stalking, identity theft, embezzling taxpayer money, and sex-trafficking a 17-year-old girl. The New York Times reported last month that federal authorities are currently investigating whether Gaetz sex-trafficked the very same minor.

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