Thread: Honduran faces stalking, sex trafficking charges following N.J. arrest

By Thomas Zambito | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 15, 2015 at 6:26 PM

NEWARK - A Honduran national who prosecutors say carved his initial into a woman he kept in servitude for several years has been indicted on stalking and sex trafficking charges in New Jersey.

Hermen Zuniga Castro, 31, was expected to appear in U.S. District Court today to answer to the charges but, according to court officials, refused to leave his cell block.

In October 2011, Castro was intercepted by federal agents near Newark Penn Station after he illegally re-entered the country in an effort to meet up with the woman in New Jersey, federal prosecutors say.

His arrest capped off what prosecutors described as a relentless stalking campaign that began in 2007 when Castro smuggled the woman into the U.S. after threatening to kill her family, including a young son.

“What’s it going to be, you or your family?” Castro asked the woman in October 2007, shortly before smuggling her into the U.S. across the Mexico border, according to a criminal complaint filed by Joseph Salavarria, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations.

In the two years that followed, Castro forced the woman to work as a prostitute in the U.S., and threatened to kill her family if she fled, prosecutors say.

For a time, Castro brought the woman to a house in Johnson City, Texas, where, Salavarria said, she was forced to have sex with men while Castro collected payments of $20 apiece.

In October 2009, Castro told the woman that he wanted to brand her with his initials “so that everyone would know that (she) belonged to him,” according to court papers.

“Unable to locate an object in the shape of his initials, (Castro) used a knife to carve an ‘H’ into the left side of (the woman’s) abdomen,” according to the complaint filed by Salavarria.

In October 2009, Castro was arrested by police in Cleburne, Texas for a traffic violation, prosecutors say.

He was sentenced to 14 months for illegal re-entry and returned to Honduras in February 2011, they say.

Several months later he contacted the woman’s family in Honduras demanding to know her whereabouts, prosecutors say.

On Oct. 11, 2011, he called the woman and told her that she should meet him at Penn Station, prosecutors say. He was arrested by federal agents in front of a bank branch in the Gateway Center near Penn Station, they say.

Castro is due back in court on Jan. 23, 2015.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/201...harges_fo.html

In the two years that followed, Castro forced the woman to work as a prostitute in the U.S., and threatened to kill her family if she fled, prosecutors say.

For a time, Castro brought the woman to a house in Johnson City, Texas, where, Salavarria said, she was forced to have sex with men while Castro collected payments of $20 apiece.

In October 2009, Castro told the woman that he wanted to brand her with his initials “so that everyone would know that (she) belonged to him,” according to court papers.

He sounds like an ignorant and illiterate animal. The "men" he was selling her to were probably illegals also. JMO