2 accused of helping run prostitution ring
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
VAL WALTON
News staff writer
Two men accused of helping to run a prostitution ring from an Albertville trailer park have been charged in federal court and have a Wednesday detention hearing, court records show.

Jose Elias Mirada-Guillen and Miguel Leon-Mora are charged in a criminal complaint filed late Friday in connection with the alleged house of prostitution that police believe operated out of the Kilpatrick Mobile Home Park on Kilpatrick Road.

The men are believed to have used women from Central and South American countries, paying them in cash and rotating the prostitutes weekly.

An affidavit accuses Leon-Mora of transporting an individual to engage in prostitution; enticing an individual to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution; failure to file a factual statement concerning alien prostitutes; and harboring illegal aliens for financial gain. He is accused of paying a woman to travel from Georgia to Alabama to perform sex acts at a prostitution house.

The affidavit accuses Mirada-Guillen of failure to file a factual statement concerning alien prostitutes; harboring illegal aliens for financial gain; and reentry after deportation.

The men are being held without bond after an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Armstrong. Janie Lee Mangieri, an attorney appointed for Leon-Mora, declined comment Monday. Court records Monday afternoon did not indicate an attorney for Mirada-Guillen.

Detectives Jason Keeton and Tim Abercrombie began the investigation in September 2006 after complaints of a prostitution operation were received, according to the affidavit filed by W. Brandon Darby, a senior special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two months later, a confidential source came to the Albertville Police Department to report a prostitution operation.

The affidavit said the person running the operations at the trailer, named "Elias," would collect $30 from the customer and give the customer a poker chip. The customer would then choose one of the two prostitutes and give her the poker chip in exchange for sex. At the end of the day, the prostitute would earn $15 for each poker chip she collected.

The source told police an out-of-work bounty hunter nicknamed "Security" was paid to pose as a police officer to close down rival prostitution houses.

The affidavit said the prostitution operation actually belonged to Martin Gonzalez, the brother of Mirada-Guillen and Leon-Mora. Agents said the two began running it after Gonzalez was deported, but he continued to receive about $800 to $1,000 of the profits every three days by wire.

Albertville police have said the men ran an $800,000-a-year prostitution house that may have operated as long as six years.

E-mail: vwalton@bhamnews.com

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