Thread: Raid here ends girl's captivity as a sex slave

Saturday, 11/11/06

Raid here ends girl's captivity as a sex slave
Feds say couple lured her from Mexico at age 13

By SHEILA BURKE
Staff Writer

She is known in federal court documents only as "S.M.C."

At the age of 13, they say, she was smuggled into the U.S. from Oaxaca, Mexico, the first leg of a horrific journey that led her to a Harding Place area apartment. There she was beaten, raped and forced into a life of prostitution — an ordeal requiring her to have sex with as many as 40 men a day.

This week federal authorities said they arrested two people and charged them with the sex trafficking of children. Juan Mendez and Cristina Andres Perfecto, both of Nashville, were named Thursday in a complaint filed in federal court in Memphis.

Federal officials in Memphis, who began the investigation, and Metro police, who assisted in a raid at the Harding Place area apartment last week, said it is the first case to their knowledge involving children smuggled into the country to be forced into the sex trade.

"Obviously, we're concerned about it, and it's certainly our intention to keep this investigation going," said Lee Anne Jordon, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Memphis.

Investigators will be as aggressive as possible to stop the trafficking, Jordon said.

Federal authorities said it's too early to tell how large the ring was or whether all perpetrators have been found.

The girl, now 15, is the only juvenile victim identified, Jordon said.

However, court documents say the victim's cousin and other women also have been forced to sell their bodies. Like the teen, officials said, they were lured to this country by a promise of honest jobs in the U.S. so they could send money back to their families.

In an interview Friday, Mendez's wife said she didn't know anything about the charges and that she had not seen her husband in more than a week.

"I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm not going to let him run around with other women," Maria Rita Hernandez said through an interpreter outside her apartment on Hickory Trace Drive in south Nashville.

She said she has lived in Nashville for the past five years and that she and Mendez have two children, ages 5 and 1.

It was a series of raids at Memphis brothels that led federal authorities to Mendez and Perfecto, FBI agent Randy Thysse said.

After the raids, a man the girl had befriended who ran a brothel in Memphis tipped off federal authorities about the trafficking ring and about the girl.

They found her after Smyrna police received a tip. Afterward, she was taken into the custody of the state Department of Children's Services.

She is now in a foster home of Spanish-speaking people and will get counseling and any other treatment she needs, DCS spokesman Rob Johnson said.

"Under the circumstances, given all that's happened, this girl's doing well — all things considered," he said.

Eventually the goal will be to reunite her with her family, but DCS investigators will be looking closely at the circumstances that led her to this country, he said.

Court documents say that in August 2005 Perfecto went to the girl's family of farm laborers in a rural area of Mexico. She told them that Mendez, her boyfriend, could help the girl get a job as a waitress in a Nashville restaurant.

She assured the girl's family that she would make enough money to send some back home.

Perfecto, authorities said, told the girl that she and Mendez would have to pay smugglers $3,000 to get her into the United States and that she would have to repay that once she started working.

Perfecto and the teenager were captured twice by the U.S. Border Patrol but eventually were able to make it to the United States. Once in Nashville, she met Mendez and was taken to an apartment at 5099 Linbar Drive.

There, court documents allege, Mendez raped her and threatened to kill her family if she did not work as a prostitute. She was 14 at the time.

The girl told investigators that she was a virgin when she arrived in Nashville and described the rape as very painful.

Two weeks later, court documents say, Mendez took her to a Kentucky brothel and forced her to have sex with 14 people on the first day. Afterward she was sick with a headache and severe pelvic inflammation and had to be hospitalized for several days.

Mendez let her rest for two weeks after her release from the hospital but then forced her to work as a prostitute in Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Birmingham, Ala., and other cities, the federal documents say.

She was never allowed to leave unescorted and never ran away because she was afraid for her family, the account says. Authorities arrested 29 people, 10 of whom have been indicted, federal officials said.

Last Saturday agents with the bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Mendez and Perfecto into custody.

A 2004 federal Department of Justice report estimates that between 14,500 and 17,500 people annually in the U.S. are victims of human trafficking, either forced to work as prostitutes or laborers.

An international relief organization with a hub in Nashville will begin training Metro police next year to investigate sex trafficking.

"It's very new for us to have on our radar in Tennessee, but" sex trafficking is "not a new thing," said Amber Beckham, coordinator for World Relief's Network of Emergency Trafficking Services. •

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art ... /611110344

So why does Mendez's wife have a different last name? And why does she not speak English? More importantly, why am I having to ask these questions when the report could have explained this nonsense for us by just telling us that they are not really married and that at least the wife is an illegal, as is probably the whole kit and kaboodle.

However, court documents say the victim's cousin and other women also have been forced to sell their bodies. Like the teen, officials said, they were lured to this country by a promise of honest jobs in the U.S. so they could send money back to their families.

How does a parent allow such a thing to happen? This is actually the first time I've felt pity for an illegal immigrant. It's horrible to think of what that girl went through. I have a daughter the same age. I certainly hope those guilty of forcing the young girl into prostitution are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law! Furthermore, the parents need locked away too!

Many times the family knows the person who offers the daughter the job or if they don't they think of all the promises made to them. The daughter will be better off, making more money, will send money back home and have a lot better future than where she is now. Desparate and/or greedy people will fall for it. They don't realize that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. So they allow them to go not realizing what will happen to them. It is very sad about the girl as she will probably suffer for the rest of her life. Who knows what diseases she may have caught.

Originally Posted by CrocketsGhost

So why does Mendez's wife have a different last name? And why does she not speak English? More importantly, why am I having to ask these questions when the report could have explained this nonsense for us by just telling us that they are not really married and that at least the wife is an illegal, as is probably the whole kit and kaboodle.

Contemporary journalism reports the rumors behind the news so that we can research the things that occur in our world on the Internet.

One thing I found with both Hispanics and other ethnic groups; if they get caught in a bad situation, they don't speak English. I see it all the time.

Sad but true, this is nothing new, rape and forced prostitution goes on all the time. I don't know how many are this young but many young girls are prey to these sickos who see them as nothing more than money on the hoof.
It really is a shame there are people out there like that, they probably have put this gal through so much trauma she may never recover.
This is the sad side of illegals, they open themselves up to being preyed apon by every scum bag out there. While I can agree it's mainly their own fault for not knowing what they are getting into I still get pissed at the scum bags who see a persons life as nothing but money in their pocket. I may not want these illegals here but I take no pleasure in seeing anyone treated this way.
I have caught many illegals on my property and held them for the BP but I let them sit in the shade and give them water if they are thristy, I see no reason to be cruel to them.

So why does Mendez's wife have a different last name? And why does she not speak English? More importantly, why am I having to ask these questions when the report could have explained this nonsense for us by just telling us that they are not really married and that at least the wife is an illegal, as is probably the whole kit and kaboodle.

I suspect that she is probably getting public assistance for the kids, can't do that if there is a husband.

Sex Slave Trade
Perhaps the grimmest foreshadowing of a post-FTAA world is seen in the unspeakable trade of sex slave immigrants — a growing evil already within our borders.

“The first time I went to the camps I didn’t vomit only because I had nothing in my stomach,” said a volunteer American doctor, who was providing health care to “migrant” workers. She was referring to the treatment of little girls (some as young as nine or ten years old) who were brought over the border through Mexico to be sold as sex slaves to brothels outside San Diego, California.

“The girls were sold to [migrant] farm workers — between 100 and 300 at a time — in small ‘caves’ made of reeds in the fields,” recounted the anonymous doctor to the April American Family Association Journal. The girls would be “used by as many as 35 men in one hour.” When the doctor attempted to “complain to government authorities about the abuse,” she was “instructed by her supervisor to concern herself only with trying to prevent the girls from contracting sexually transmitted diseases by providing condoms.”

A shocking January 25 New York Times article entitled “The Girls Next Door” detailed how “under-age girls and young women from dozens of countries are trafficked … [into] the United States through Mexico.” This is done with the cooperation of Mexico’s federal preventive police, who work with the traffickers.

One federal officer bluntly told the Times that “10 high-level officials [read: pimps] in the state of Sonora share a $200,000 weekly payoff from traffickers,” and are “key players in the organization.” And a U.S. Embassy official said, “Corruption is the most important reason these networks are so successful.”

In certain ghettos in Mexico City, new worker girls are sold in what amount to “virginity auctions” held out on the street. Immediately afterwards, the girls are taken and are broken in by 20 to 30 men per day to get them “ready” for work in the United States.

But it’s not just the “migrant” workers who are the clients in this wretched commerce. Much of the business is geared towards pedophilic predators born and raised in this country. Once in the U.S., these children (some reportedly as young as four years old) are shuttled around to different houses where they are forced to ply their new trade away from view, earning up to $30,000 per week for their owners. STOPtheFTAA source

The Russian mob uses Mexico as a point of entry for women who are forced into prostitution as well. From Mexico they often get smuggled into the U.S. by boat.