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08-02-2006, 12:49 PM #1
Immigrant prostitution ring busted
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n ... othel.html
Immigrant prostitution ring busted
Feds: Leader opened second Travis County brothel while he was wanted
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Two of the women were from Honduras, and federal investigators said they were brought to the Austin area to turn tricks in a run-down white house between a junkyard and a field just off FM 969.
When one arrived in town in June, a man at the house showed her a .38-caliber revolver and told her that she couldn't leave, she told federal agents. A week later, the man in charge took the money the two had earned and said they could not have any of it until they worked a week at a brothel in Oklahoma City.
Once there, another man flashed a gun and told the women that he "did not want any trouble from them or 'they could disappear very easily,' " according to a federal affidavit.
The brothels in eastern Travis County and Oklahoma City were part of a multistate prostitution ring partially broken by federal agents in recent weeks, according to court documents. The brothels used women from Mexico as well as Central and South American countries and catered mostly to undocumented workers, court documents show.
It is unclear from the documents whether the women at the Travis County house were recruited abroad and brought to the United States to work as prostitutes or whether they were forced into it after being brought into the country. A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said she did not know details of the case.
The brothel in Travis County was the second in that area run by the same man, court documents said. Juan Balderas-Orosco, 34, escaped capture when authorities raided the first one four years ago, but he was arrested June 29 and charged with transporting women to engage in prostitution after a yearlong surveillance operation at the second location. Four others face similar charges.
Balderas has been ordered held without bail pending a hearing. His court-appointed lawyer declined to comment, saying he was not yet familiar with the case.
In 2002, immigration agents and Austin police raided a house, which they later said was a brothel run by Balderas, on FM 969. They arrested two Mexican men and two women, one from Colombia and the other from the Dominican Republic. The women told agents that they were moved among locations in several states and forced to perform sex acts for money, court documents said.
Agents claimed Balderas was the leader of the prostitution ring and ran houses in Austin and other cities.
"The organization recruits females . . . and arranges for them to be smuggled into the United States. The aliens are held in indentured servitude and forced into prostitution," an arrest affidavit said.
The men accused of working for Balderas pleaded guilty in federal court to transporting and harboring illegal aliens, served 15 months in prison and were deported.
About a year after the first house was raided, Balderas opened another brothel about one mile east on FM 969, court documents said. Just outside Austin's city limits, the house at 9807 FM 969 is isolated at the end of a dirt driveway that runs next to the Decker Lake Inn restaurant.
A federal affidavit said that in June 2005, agents "placed a covert pole camera to allow continued surveillance on the brothel." A year later, on June 29, agents raided the house. On the same day, a brothel in Dallas was raided, and Balderas was arrested after leaving an Oklahoma City brothel, the affidavit said.
According to the affidavit, Balderas said that he and two others ran the Oklahoma City brothel for a woman they identified as Maria Camacho. It is unclear whether she has been charged.
Francisco Castillo-Celaya and David Mendoza — their ages and hometowns were not available — were also arrested and charged in Oklahoma City on June 29. Castillo has been brought to Austin, where he is being held without bail. Two others, including Balderas' wife, have been charged but not arrested, court documents said.
A metal gate in front of 9807 FM 969 was locked Tuesday. At the Decker Lake Inn, owner Jay Sailors said he did not have a sense of what was going on at the house until about a month ago, when several men came asking for a "special house . . . a house with women."
"I saw lots of cars coming and going," Sailors said. "But I've never seen any women back there, period. Only men."Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn
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08-02-2006, 01:45 PM #2The men accused of working for Balderas pleaded guilty in federal court to transporting and harboring illegal aliens, served 15 months in prison and were deported."Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results is the definition of insanity. " Albert Einstein.
Laura Loomer - Woke up this morning to a @nytimes article...
03-27-2024, 11:36 PM in General Discussion