News
College kids vow to end slavery (01/18/2012 @ 18:47:11)
They filled the Georgia International Plaza next to the Georgia Dome stadium and stood in the crisp 40 degree air this week staring up at the 100-foot high hand reaching toward the sky. Just a few minutes after midnight, they lit candles and the lights below the statue came on. The students cheered then started to softly sing. A chant of "FREE-DOM! FREE-DOM!" grew momentum.
The event was one of the final gatherings during the Passion 2012 conference, an annual meeting of 18 to 25 year olds. The students were encouraged to donate money to causes that battle trafficking.
The statue, covered in items made by slaves like clothes, represents many things said the man responsible for coordinating the outreach efforts with the organizations that will receive portions of the more than $2.6 million raised during the four-day conference.
"Is it a hand of worship? Yes. Is it a hand of justice? Yes. Is it a [helping] hand from this generation? Yes. It is all those things," said Bryson Vogeltanz, the chief steward of Do Something Now, a fundraising arm of the Passion City Church. "We believe in these students so much and we felt like this issue was something they could rally around. Not just for these four days. We believe they will not only leverage these four days, but ... their lives."
Vogeltanz said the kids were asked in the months leading up to the sold-out event to learn more about human trafficking so many came to Atlanta with some awareness of the immense nature of the problem.
But sometimes people still think of trafficking as something that happens in other countries, "Melissa," a former sex slave, told CNN.
Melissa was raised in the Atlanta area, but had a bad life at home and says she moved out when she was 18. She and another friend found an apartment that became unaffordable when they both lost their jobs. They were approached by a man who offered quick cash if they would go out with men. $300, no sex, he promised. It was a lie.
He plied the teenagers with drugs and kept them trapped in a town home. They had no car, no way of getting away. They were high all the time so Melissa's family disowned their druggie daughter. Melissa was beaten. After a year in hell, Melissa asked a random man she met to take her to a hospital. She thought she was going to die.
The hospital released her and told her to go home. At 3 a.m., Melissa called her mom for the first time in many months. Thinking her mom wouldn't come, she also called the man who ruled her life. Her mom showed up first. Eventually she ended up the first woman in Wellspring Living, a program for former sex slaves.
Today, Melissa is a stay-at-home married mom with a 2-year-old child. She stays active with Wellspring, which she says saved her life physically and emotionally.
She came to Passion to tell young people her story and thank them for supporting Wellspring, the group that helped her rebuild her life. She was overwhelmed by the tens of thousands shows of support.
"As I was driving up to the conference this morning, I was watching the kids and I just smiled," she said. "Because they are learning and they are becoming aware of things that happen in the real world - in Atlanta, in California, in Alabama, not just in the movies or in other countries."
Melissa said when she was a slave none of her neighbors ever called the police, never got involved in any way. They probably were too afraid to get involved, she said. And she hopes that that will change, that the kids who were so selfless with their money will also speak up when they see something wrong.That they will get involved in other ways too.
Vogeltanz echoed her thoughts.
"Our goal is not to get a bunch of transactions. It's not about the money," he said. "It's about these students lives being changed and [them] engaging ... This is a shift in your core. Because once you know the facts, you can either go for it or you can ignore it. And for us, indifference is not an option."
Later, after the singing died down and the college kids turned to leave, most cupped their hands around their candles instead of blowing them out. They slowly walked back to their hotels, not wanting the light to die out.
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/05/college-kids-vow-to-end-slavery/
NightLight Atlanta Video (01/10/2012 @ 18:03:37)
13-Year Old Lured into Sex Trafficking (12/11/2011 @ 23:28:14)
The case involved a thirteen year old girl from Baker County. Earlier today, we spoke with District Attorney Joe Mulholland and he said South Georgia has never seen a case like this before.
The Grady County Sheriff's department first started investigating the case back in June of this year. Sheriff Young said they received a call about the possible sex trafficking of a young girl and immediately took action.
Grady County Sheriff Harry Young says, "Anytime we have something to do with a child being molested, it becomes top priority for us in the Sheriff's Office."
According to officials, Yarnell Donald and his girlfriend, Tiffany Simpson, arranged for the victim to be brought into Cairo to have sex with four men in a trailer.
Earlier this month all of the people involved in the incident, with the exception of Donald, had plead guilty to their charges. The DA announced this morning that the case will not be going to trial.
Joe Mulholland said, "Fortunately, for the victim, we were able to secure a plea against the ring leader, Yarnell Donald. He got life plus ten years in the state penitentiary for his acts."
The charges included aggravated child molestation, rape, enticing a child for indecent purposes and sex trafficking. The four men convicted of having sex with the girl will each serve five years and Simpson will serve twenty years for her involvement in the case.
Under Georgia law, Yarnell Donald will not be eligible for parole for at least thirty years.
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Grady_County_Sex_Trafficking_135351453.html?storySection=story
New Jersey Lawyer Sentenced (11/29/2011 @ 21:21:58)
“This defendant provides another stark example of how pedophiles’ use of the Internet emboldens them to step from behind their computers and act on their impulses. It also shows how the Internet expands child predators’ universe of victims far beyond their local community. This defendant made concrete plans to fly nearly a thousand miles to sexually abuse a little girl,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges, and other information presented in court: In May 2010, NILSEN met an undercover FBI agent in an online chatroom entitled “ChildSlaveSex.” The agent was posing as the mother of a 7-year-old girl. NILSEN explained to the agent that he was interested in introducing the agent’s “daughter” to the world of sexual exploration. For several weeks, NILSEN explained to the agent how to groom her daughter for their eventual sexual encounter. This process included exposing the daughter to images of child pornography that NILSEN instructed the agent to download from the Internet.
After NILSEN revealed his true identity to the agent and spoke with her on the phone to confirm that she was a real female and mother, he purchased a ticket to fly from New Jersey to Atlanta so he could have sex with the agent’s daughter. Several days before his flight, in June 2010, NILSEN was arrested in Bergen County, New Jersey, by local authorities when he sought to meet with another minor female as part of a local law enforcement investigation in that jurisdiction.
NILSEN was extradited to Georgia and pleaded guilty in September 2011. District Court Judge Julie E. Carnes sentenced NILSEN today to 12 years in prison, to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. NILSEN will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from custody.
This case was investigated by special agents and task force agents of the FBI, as well as officers from the Sandy Springs (Georgia) and Bergen County (New Jersey) Police Departments.
Assistant United States Attorney Robert McBurney prosecuted the case.
Pedophile Rights (10/21/2011 @ 01:13:09)
Critics of the homosexual lifestyle have long claimed that once it became acceptable to identify homosexuality as simply an “alternative lifestyle” or sexual orientation, logically nothing would be off limits.
“Gay” advocates have taken offense at such a position insisting this would never happen. However, psychiatrists are now beginning to advocate redefining pedophilia in the same way homosexuality was redefined several years ago.
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. A group of psychiatrists with B4U-Act recently held a symposium proposing a new definition of pedophilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders of the APA.
B4U-Act calls pedophiles “minor-attracted people.” The organization's website states its purpose is to, “help mental health professionals learn more about attraction to minors and to consider the effects of stereotyping, stigma and fear.”
In 1998 The APA issued a report claiming “that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from childhood sexual abuse experiences.”
Pedophilia has already been granted protected status by the Federal Government. The Matthew Shephard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act lists “sexual orientation” as a protected class; however, it does not define the term.
Republicans attempted to add an amendment specifying that “pedophilia is not covered as an orientation;” however, the amendment was defeated by Democrats. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fl) stated that all alternative sexual lifestyles should be protected under the law. “This bill addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these ‘philias’ and fetishes and ‘isms’ that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule.”
The White House praised the bill saying, “At root, this isn't just about our laws; this is about who we are as a people. This is about whether we value one another -- whether we embrace our differences rather than allowing them to become a source of animus.”
Earlier this year two psychologists in Canada declared that pedophilia is a sexual orientation just like homosexuality or heterosexuality.
Van Gijseghem, psychologist and retired professor of the University of Montreal, told members of Parliament, "Pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offense from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality."
He went on to say, "True pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation. He may, however, remain abstinent."
When asked if he should be comparing pedophiles to homosexuals, Van Gijseghem replied, "If, for instance, you were living in a society where heterosexuality is proscribed or prohibited and you were told that you had to get therapy to change your sexual orientation, you would probably say that that is slightly crazy. In other words, you would not accept that at all. I use this analogy to say that, yes indeed, pedophiles do not change their sexual orientation.”
Dr. Quinsey, professor emeritus of psychology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, agreed with Van Gijseghem. Quinsey said pedophiles' sexual interests prefer children and, "There is no evidence that this sort of preference can be changed through treatment or through anything else."
In July, 2010 Harvard health Publications said, “Pedophilia is a sexual orientation and unlikely to change. Treatment aims to enable someone to resist acting on his sexual urges."
Linda Harvey, of Mission America, said the push for pedophiles to have equal rights will become more and more common as LGBT groups continue to assert themselves. “It’s all part of a plan to introduce sex to children at younger and younger ages; to convince them that normal friendship is actually a sexual attraction.”
Milton Diamond, a University of Hawaii professor and director of the Pacific Center for Sex and Society, stated that child pornography could be beneficial to society because, "Potential sex offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex against children."
Diamond is a distinguished lecturer for the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. The IASHS openly advocated for the repeal of the Revolutionary war ban on homosexuals serving in the military.
The IASHS lists, on its website, a list of "basic sexual rights" that includes "the right to engage in sexual acts or activities of any kind whatsoever, providing they do not involve nonconsensual acts, violence, constraint, coercion or fraud." Another right is to, "be free of persecution, condemnation, discrimination, or societal intervention in private sexual behavior" and "the freedom of any sexual thought, fantasy or desire." The organization also says that no one should be "disadvantaged because of age."
Sex offender laws protecting children have been challenged in several states including California, Georgia and Iowa. Sex offenders claim the laws prohibiting them from living near schools or parks are unfair because it penalizes them for life.
http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2011/October20/2081.html
Tn Teen Rescued in Atlanta (07/11/2011 @ 21:58:28)
By Marcus K. Garner
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A missing Nashville teen was rescued from an Atlanta area human trafficking and prostitution network, and one man was arrested during the investigation, authorities said.
GBI agents located the 16-year-old girl in a Clayton County hotel Thursday with the help of the Clayton County police and federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents , GBI spokesman John Bankhead said Saturday.
While in the room the juvenile was operating from, the teen's phone rang. When she didn't answer, a man came to the door, Bankhead said.
He identified himself as Huie Herosheio Pollard, 26, and was arrested on an active arrested for unrelated charges.
But when agents and police tried to take Pollard into custody, he became combative, Bankhead said.
He was eventually arrested on the outstanding warrant and additional charges of simple battery on a law enforcement officer, obstruction and terroristic threats.
According to hotel records agents recovered, the teen had been staying there for more than 30 days.
She was taken to the Metro Youth Detention Center pending transport to Tennessee, and in a Friday morning hearing she was waived extradition to Tennessee.
Other charges against Pollard are possible pending further GBI investigation, Bankhead said.
http://www.ajc.com/news/clayton/missing-tennessee-teen-found-1006910.html
Woman Sells 3 Yr Old Boy (06/28/2011 @ 10:58:35)
OKLAHOMA CITY -- As News 9 reported Thursday night, two arrests have been made in connection to the rape and abuse of a 3-year-old boy at a southwest side hotel.
The boy's mother was jailed for child neglect and her friend was arrested for allegedly allowing two men to have sex with the boy in exchange for drugs.
A family member said the boy is slowly but surely recovering from the traumatic experience and that he opened his eyes for first time since the ordeal.
This horrific case prompted a closer look at the overarching problem of prostitution, drug trafficking and the children caught in the middle.
South Robinson between 34th and 43rd Streets is one of the areas Oklahoma City police said is known for prostitutes.
JohnTV.com exposes prostitutes in the action of having sex via video. The website's founder says Jennifer Ragland (also known as Jennifer Chapman) is one of those prostitutes. She has been accused of allowing two men to rape and abuse a 3-year-old boy in exchange for drugs.
"Cases like this where you have a 3-year-old going through this are, thankfully, extremely rare," said Master Sgt. Gary Knight of the Oklahoma City Police Department. "We almost never see it."
But, older children are often at the center of prostitution and drug trafficking.
"Child abuse does go hand-in-hand with prostitution because that goes hand-in-hand with drug addiction," said Brian Bates of JohnTV.com. "Most of these women on the streets are only here because they are motivated by drugs. Drugs is really their pimp."
Childhood prostitution is more common in cases involving children ages 12 to 17.
"I've interviewed many prostitutes over the years and probably about 30 to 40 percent will tell you at one point either their first pimp, or somewhere along the line, their parents were their pimp," Bates said.
Police and Bates agree children are exposed online and on private property such as truck stops. Police say they are combating the issue with stings both online and on the streets.
In the specific case involving prostitution with the 3-year-old boy, police are still looking for at least two suspects, possibly day laborers.
http://www.news9.com/story/14974736/drug-addicts-prostitute-toddler-for-meth
Woman Tries to sell Daughter's Virginity (05/26/2011 @ 02:08:14)
Move over Botox Mom. There's a new bad mommy in town. Felicia Rae McClure has been charged with trying to sell her 13-year-old daughter's virginity to a guy named "Don" for $10,000.
If convicted, Felicia Rae McClure, 32, faces lifetime in prison for trying to sell her 13-year-old daughter's virginity to a man for $10,000.
The 32-year-old Salt Lake City woman has been hit with "two first-degree felony counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child and two second-degree felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor," according to the Associated Press. "If convicted, the woman faces a lifetime prison sentence for each first-degree felony and a zero to 15 year sentence for each second-degree felony." Bail was set at $250,000.
Salt Lake police reported that Don took the mother and daughter to Victoria's Secret where they modeled bras and thongs and took photographs. Police also report that pictures were sent to a man named "Will."
The daughter initially agreed to have sex, but later changed her mind.
It's hard to imagine how a mother could ever commit such a horrible crime. Yes, all mothers make mistakes but trying to sell your daughter's virginity is unacceptable.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=89614&tsp=1
Paying to View Minors (05/08/2011 @ 17:08:39)
United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This case sadly and starkly illustrates the global reach the Internet has given to pedophiles. The defendant, while being paid by American taxpayers to live and work in Italy, used government resources to gain access to a very young child living here in Georgia to engage in sexually explicit acts—acts he observed in real-time while he was online. I commend the hard work by the Air Force, the FBI, and the prosecutors of this office in bringing this man to justice.”
CALEY was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. CALEY will also be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from custody. The younger victim’s mother earlier pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography and is currently in federal prison.
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges, and other information presented in court: In late 2006, CALEY began chatting online with the mother of one of the victims, a woman who lived in Bremen, Georgia. CALEY was then a master sergeant in the United States Air Force, assigned to the U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy. As CALEY and the victim’s mother became more intimate through online communications, they began to express shared interests in underage and incestual sexual acts. By the spring of 2007, in exchange for money orders that CALEY sent from Italy to Georgia, the mother was making her 4-year-old daughter “available” to CALEY online. CALEY, by way of a webcam, would observe the victim as she engaged in a variety of sexually explicit acts.
This pay-per-view scheme expanded at one point to include two other older juvenile females who would frequent the victim’s household. CALEY, through the webcam, observed these two girls in sexually suggestive poses as well.
The case broke in late 2007, when the FBI learned of similar conduct by the victim’s mother and another subject. Agents found evidence of CALEY’s explicit online chats on the mother’s computer and eventually traced him to Aviano. Armed with this information, FBI agents flew to Italy in January 2008 to confront CALEY, who quickly admitted to paying for video access to the young girl. CALEY was then subject to Air Force court martial proceedings on the basis of child pornography that was found on his computer in Aviano. That matter was resolved in September 2009 and CALEY was turned over to federal authorities.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigative Division of the United States Air Force.
Assistant United States Attorneys Francey Hakes and Robert McBurney prosecuted the case.
40 Year Sentence (03/28/2011 @ 19:17:12)
Amador Cortes-Meza smuggled young victims from Mexico and forced them into prostitution
ATLANTA (MMD Newswire) March 25, 2011 -- A man from Mexico, who was the leader of a local sex trafficking ring that tricked and forced young girls into prostitution, was sentenced Thursday to serve 40 years in federal prison for sex trafficking minors, and various other related criminal convictions.
This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
"Few crimes are more heinous than sex trafficking human beings," said Brock Nicholson, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Atlanta. "ICE HSI will vigorously pursue any members of criminal organizations engaged in this dangerous, dehumanizing and illegal business."
Amador Cortes-Meza, 36, of Tlaxcala, Mexico, was sentenced to 40 years in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay restitution to a number of victims identified by their initials: $80,000 to "LMJ," $6,000 to "MVL," $6,000 to "AAS," $56,000 to "NHP," $4,000 to "LGI," $76,000 to "NMS," $8,000 to "MPM," and $56,000 to "RHP."
Cortes-Meza was convicted of these charges on Nov. 21, 2010, after a two-week trial. In addition to sex trafficking minors, Cortes-Meza was also convicted of the following offenses: sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, transporting minors for the purpose of prostitution, smuggling aliens into the United States for purposes of prostitution, and conspiracy to do the same.
"No one wants to believe that there are people who will enslave other human beings and require them to commit innumerable commercial sex acts," said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates, for the Northern District of Georgia. "Yet this intolerable crime is happening right in our own neighborhoods in metropolitan Atlanta. This defendant tricked young girls and juveniles into leaving their families in Mexico, beat them, and forced them into more than 20 acts of prostitution a night here in Atlanta. These survivors courageously testified against the defendant and played a significant role in bringing him to justice. This defendant earned every day of his 40 year sentence."
Cortes-Meza was the ring leader of an organization that brought 10 victims to the United States, including four juveniles, and forced them into prostitution. Nine of the victims testified at trial that the defendant, his brother Juan Cortes-Meza, 34, and a nephew Francisco Cortes-Meza, 27, tricked young women in Mexico into coming to the United States.
Amador Cortes-Meza and the co-defendants pretended to be romantically interested in the young girls, many of whom were from rural areas, some of whom did not have much education, and most of whom had not dated before. The defendant and his co-conspirators promised the victims they would have a life together and then tell them they needed to travel to the United States to make money working in restaurants or cleaning homes.
Victims testified at trial that Amador Cortes-Meza was physically abusive both in Mexico and the United States if they disagreed with his plans or told him no. One victim recounted that while still in Mexico she asked to go home, to go back to her family. Amador Cortes-Meza responded by repeatedly dunking her head in a wooden bucket of water until the young woman thought she would drown. He then picked up the bucket and threw it at her head, shattering the bucket.
"The court's sentence clearly reflects the seriousness of these awful sex trafficking crimes," said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. "The victims suffered sexual abuse, physical assaults, threats of harm to their families, and daily degradation all because of this defendant's greed and callous disregard for them as individuals. We are committed to prosecuting sex traffickers and vindicating victims' rights, as they were vindicated today."
The evidence presented in court showed that Amador Cortes-Meza also obtained false identification for the victims and made arrangements with "coyotes" to smuggle the victims and himself into the United States via Arizona. He had been caught by authorities illegally crossing the border into Arizona with two of his victims, including a juvenile that he had obtained a fake birth certificate. After being deported, he immediately re-entered the United States with both victims.
Amador Cortes-Meza prostituted girls that he knew were under the age of 18. One of two juveniles he smuggled into the country was 14 years old. He told the 14-year-old that he loved her, would marry her, and asked her to work in prostitution to earn money for their life back in Mexico. In fact, he already had a wife and children in Mexico. He ultimately forced the juvenile victim to engage in prostitution for about three years. She testified about one incident during which he pulled a knife on her and she thought that he was going to kill her.
Victims identified homes in the Norcross, Ga., area where they were housed by Amador Cortes-Meza and his co-conspirators. The co-conspirators took turns monitoring the victims. Various drivers retrieved the victims from the homes and transported them to residences of clients where the victims were required to engage in commercial sex. The victims testified that when they refused to engage in prostitution, Amador Cortes-Meza or his co-conspirators beat them and threatened them and their families with physical harm. On the witness stand, many of the victims cried as they recounted the first time they were forced into prostitution, stating they had to have sex with upwards of 20 men that first night. As time went on, Amador Cortes-Meza required many of the victims to service about 40 customers per night, at the rate of $25 per customer. The co-conspirators and the drivers split the proceeds of the prostitution.
The victims testified about the physical abuse used by the defendant to control them. Many indicated that Amador Cortes-Meza hit them with his fists, belts, and sticks and dragged them around by their hair. One victim testified that she tried to escape one night and subsequently was beaten by the defendant with a broomstick and a rod from the closet. The witness' hand was permanently disfigured when she attempted to shield herself from his blows. This same witness testified that after her first two days of forced prostitution she felt, in her words, "destroyed." When she told Amador Cortes-Meza that she was in pain from the commercial sex acts he forced her to perform, he replied that it "didn't mean a thing" to him, and that she had to go to work the next day as well.
Another victim testified that one time she refused to engage in prostitution and that Amador Cortes-Meza responded by throwing an iron at her which sliced open her head. She stated the cut bled for a week and that she was denied medical care. This victim testified that she still experiences complications and headaches due to the head injury. Other victims testified they saw the savage beatings and were fearful of disobeying Amador Cortes-Meza. Witnesses identified two other women who escaped prior to ICE rescuing the remaining 10 victims.
Other co-conspirators previously pleaded guilty to multiple human trafficking crimes as part of the scheme. Amador Cortes-Meza's nephew Francisco Cortes-Meza was sentenced to 20 years in prison on April 6, 2010. His brother Juan Cortes-Meza was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison. Another of his nephews, Raul Cortes-Meza, 23, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on April 30, 2010.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Coppedge and Deputy Chief Karima Maloney of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division prosecuted the case.
ICE and the Department of Justice encourage members of the public to report suspected human trafficking. The Department of Homeland Security's tip line to report trafficking crimes is 1-866-347-2423.
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/head-of-sex-trafficking-ring-sentenced-to-40-years-in-prison-33806.html
Drugging Minors (03/18/2011 @ 07:36:32)
Project Safe Childhood
KANSAS CITY, MO—Beth Phillips, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Kansas City, Missouri man was found guilty, after entering a plea of no contest in federal court today, to drugging and molesting 13 child victims, with some of the sexual abuse videotaped, over a four-year period.
James Phillip "Phil" Edwards, 61, of Kansas City, pleaded no contest to all 21 counts contained in an April 7, 2010, federal indictment and U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple entered a judgment of guilty on all counts.
The government cited evidence in court today that Edwards created multiple videos of his serial molestation of 13 victims, whose ages at the time of their molestations ranged from 6 years to 13 years old. All of the sexual abuse occurred at Edwards’ residence, with all but one of the videos recorded in his basement, between July 21, 2001, and June 23, 2005.
Edwards admitted to law enforcement agents that he drugged the victims with sleeping pills, including Ambien and its generic, which were hidden in ice cream and soft drinks that he served to the children. The victims in the videos appear drugged and are obviously unconscious, even though their bodies are being subjected to a variety of molestations. Often they are in bed with other children, who also remained unconscious as Edwards molested one or more of them in the same bed.
In forensic interviews, a few of the victims recalled having ice cream-eating contests at Edwards’ house. However, none of the victims knew they were being drugged.
Evidence cited by the government includes a videotaped confession that Edwards made to law enforcement agents, as well as pictures, videos and documents that Edwards created on his computer. Those documents included “How to Molest Young Girls,” which provides specific information about dosage amounts and other instructions for drugging and molesting children. Another document is entitled “Pedo Handbook” and includes a section entitled “Drugging Children and Preteens.”
Edwards pleaded no contest to 12 counts of producing child pornography, one count of attempting to produce child pornography, and five counts of distributing a controlled substance to the victims without their knowledge in order to facilitate a crime of violence.
The government’s evidence is that Edwards was caught in two separate undercover sting operations in 2009 by two different law enforcement agencies that were investigating the use of file-sharing programs to trade child pornography. Edwards was downloading child pornography from the Internet, the government alleges, using a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that allowed files on his computer to be downloaded by other users. As a result of these undercover operations, Edwards was identified and arrested. The subsequent investigation uncovered the sexual abuse of the children who had been drugged and molested.
In May 2009, an FBI task force officer in Oklahoma City identified the IP address of Edwards’ computer, which was making multiple files with titles alluding to child pornography available for sharing over the Internet. The officer downloaded several files of child pornography, which depicted a known child victim. This conduct is the basis for the charge of advertising child pornography.
In June 2009, a detective with the Independence (Missouri) Police Department also captured Edwards’ computer IP address, during a separate investigation, making multiple images of child pornography available to others to download. This conduct is the basis for the charge of attempted distribution of child pornography.
A federal search warrant was obtained and Edwards’ computer media was seized in October 2009. A forensic examination of an external hard drive revealed many additional images of child pornography. This is the basis for the charge of possessing child pornography.
By pleading no contest today, Edwards must forfeit to the government the computer equipment, video equipment, and storage media that were used to commit the offenses.
Under federal statutes, Edwards is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in federal prison without parole for each of 11 (of the 12) counts of producing child pornography, as well as the count of attempting to produce child pornography and the count of advertising child pornography over the Internet, with a potential maximum sentence that would be the equivalent of spending the rest of his life in federal prison without parole, plus a fine and an order of restitution for his victims. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.
http://kansascity.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/kc031611.htm
Natasha Herzig rescued (11/23/2010 @ 00:00:40)
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2010/11/19/behar.natasha.herzig.intv.hln?hpt=Mid
Miami Companions Prostitution Ring (07/03/2011 @ 15:49:20)
Associated Press Writer
DETROIT - A Florida man accused of running a decade-long international prostitution ring pleaded guilty to conspiracy Thursday in federal court in Detroit, one of the cities where his business operated.
Four individuals from the Miami, Florida area have been arrested on a six-count indictment charging conspiracy to coerce and entice acts of prostitution, coercion and enticement of prostitution in the Eastern District of Michigan, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. A fifth individual was arrested on a complaint alleging conspiracy to commit money laundering, announced United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade.
Ms. McQuade was joined in the announcement by Special Agent in Charge Andrew G. Arena, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Detroit Field Division; Special Agent in Charge Maurice Aouate, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigations, Detroit Field Division; and Special Agent in Charge Brian Moskowitz, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Detroit Field Division.
The defendants included in the indictment are GREGORY CARR (a.k.a. Paul Cutlass), 43, LAURIE CARR, 39, NAYUBET LOANI SWASO, 24, and MICHELLE MATARAZZO, 36. A fifth defendant, FABIOLA CONTRERAS, 33, was arrested on a related federal complaint.
The defendants are believed to have owned and operated Miami Companions, which was, at one time, one of the largest prostitution organizations in the United States. The Miami Companions organization previously had a large presence in the Eastern District of Michigan, until agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Southeast Michigan Crimes Against Children (SEMCAC) task force made several arrests in 2009. The Miami Companions organization sent prostitutes to the Detroit. Michigan area, to include hotels in Southfield, Romulus, Novi, and Canton, for an extended period of time starting in the early 2000s until March 2009. Michigan was one of the most popular destinations for Miami Companion prostitutes.
The CARRS are alleged to have owned and operated the Miami Companions prostitution organization since 2001. The indictment also alleges that MICHELLE MATARAZZO served as an office manager, coordinating travel for the women, appointments with the clients (i.e., johns) who used their services, deposits from the women into Miami Companions bank accounts, advertisements, and web postings, among other duties. NAYUBET LOANI SWASO was the manager of the overseas call center the Carrs used for a period of time to coordinate travel of the women to different U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dayton, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, and calls from clients to schedule “dates” with the women. It is further alleged that FABIOLA CONTRERAS currently assists in managing the affairs of the organization and owns bank accounts to which the proceeds of the prostitution activities for the organization were being deposited.
The CARRS are believed to have laundered more than $4 million in proceeds from their prostitution organization in numerous bank accounts in different names in order to conceal their illegal activities. In addition, the CARRS transferred millions of dollars to overseas bank accounts in order to promote their prostitution organization by paying for employees to work in their call centers in Panama and Costa Rica, and rental payments for exotic beach houses, where clients exchanged money for sex.
The defendants were arrested on Wednesday, July 21, in the Miami, Florida region, with the exception of NAYUBET LOANI SWASO, who was arrested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are scheduled to appear in the Eastern District of Michigan on August 11, 2010. The indictment also includes a forfeiture count.
