Thread: TX Another sex trafficking case tied to cantina

Another sex trafficking case tied to cantina
Pair accused of conspiring regarding 16-year-old girl
By SUSAN CARROLL and LISE OLSEN HOUSTON CHRONICLE
June 8, 2009, 10:32PM

An east Houston bar which was at the center of a 2008 case involving a teenager trafficked to Houston from Mexico and allegedly abused as a so-called sex slave has been tied to another sex trafficking case.

A grand jury in Houston on Monday indicted two men and a woman on federal charges in the more current case, accusing them of conspiring to engage in sex trafficking of a 16-year-old girl. The state and federal charges carry up to a life sentence.

The girl allegedly was forced into prostitution at El Club Guerrero, which was at the center of the 2008 case, according to court documents from that earlier case obtained by the Chronicle.

The indictment Monday of Jorge Texis Montano, 24, Sonia Tecuapacho, 24, and Jorge Luis Aguila-Cuapio, 19, follow their arrests in May on state trafficking charges. Aguila-Cuapio also is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a person younger than 17. He’s accused of having sexual contact with the girl.

According to an affidavit by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in the case, a friend of the girl’s mother called Houston police on April 28 to report that the girl was being held against her will, physically abused and forced to work as a prostitute.

The girl told authorities Aguila-Cuapio had lured her to the U.S. about four months ago with a promise of working in a restaurant .

Instead, the criminal complaint states, she was forced to work as a prostitute in several different Houston-area bars including El Club Guerrero, located on the 6400 block of Wallisville Road.

Investigators said she told them she had been beaten when she did not make her nightly quota of money.

The earlier case linked to El Club Guerrero involved a mother and son who initially were accused of forcing another 16-year-old girl smuggled from Mexico to work as a prostitute there last spring.

That girl, also 16, was rescued from a Jacinto City house by police using GPS technology in March 2008 after she repeatedly called 911.

David Salazar and Gregoria Vasquez-Salgado were both charged with kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault of a child in Harris County in that case, but the charges were dropped in December 2008.

Salazar, 28, and Vasquez-Salgado, 59, were indicted in May by a federal grand jury on a charge of harboring an illegal immigrant in connection with the same case, records show.

Federal officials are seeking to seize the Salazars house at 1320 Jennifer Lane in Jacinto City, where the girl formerly was held, according to federal case documents.

Salazar also still owns the land where the Club Guerrero is located, according to Harris County Appraisal District records, though the club liquor license is under someone else’s name. The HCAD record is listed under a different address than the club itself, but the property legal description corresponds with the club’s location.

Salazar and Vasquez-Salgado are scheduled for trial on June 22.

susan.carroll@chron.com

lise.olsen@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hot ... 65973.html

Related:

Apr 19, 2008
ICE, courts in tug of war for suspects
Release on bond sometimes leads to deportation bid
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-668426.html


Sept. 7, 2008, 11:20AM
Bars that were bases for sex ring still open for business
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-764970.html

i saw this and was about to post it, but i said NAHHHHH