Thread: WY: Men plead to sex counts

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Men plead to sex counts

By GIL BRADY
Star-Tribune correspondent Sunday, January 21, 2007

JACKSON -- Three men pleaded guilty in federal court this week to prostituting a teenage Mexican girl and now face up to life in prison.

Jacobo Dominguez Vazquez, 33, Jose Luis Chavez, 42, and Braulio Anceto Velez, 21, all of Jackson, entered guilty pleas to two counts of sex trafficking a child and aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of a child before U.S. District Judge Clarence A. Brimmer, a government spokesman said.

Armando Salas, 26 or 27, a fourth man suspected of being a "coyote" in the ring, is still considered a federal fugitive from justice. "Coyote" is slang for traffickers, usually men, who smuggle people, often women, across Mexico's border illegally.

Jackson Police Department Detective Cpl. Roger Schultz has said that Salas was believed to have worked in the construction trade and was known to drive a blue 2000 Dodge Durango and a 1996 green Suburban or Chevy Tahoe. Schultz could not say whether Salas should be considered armed and dangerous, but that a request to the FBI for Salas's photograph had been made.

Jackson police cracked the long-suspected child sex slave and illegal alien-labor ring in August when another man, not charged in the case, mentioned a then-13-year-old girl's plight in 2004 during questioning in an unrelated matter.

Following weeks of undercover work, detectives made their first arrests early last September, booking reports show.

Vazquez was nabbed in Victor, Idaho, and extradited to Jackson. A magistrate judge found enough evidence to bind Vazquez over for trial and deny a reduction in bail for Chavez before federal prosecutors stepped in around Sept. 21 and local charges were dropped.

Jackson police have alleged that Chavez, a local restaurateur, was the gang's ringleader and had also smuggled other people to work as cheap laborers or prostitutes.

Last year, former lead detective Todd Smith, now sheriff of Lincoln County, said a second girl who had been prostituted by the gang, escaped. Because he had no information at the time about her whereabouts, he said she was presumed still alive.

Authorities say the girls were lured from their communities in Mexico and promised better lives in the United States. However, upon their arrival here, prosecutors say, they were told they would be "having sex with men for money."

One girl, who police say had been raped at gunpoint, reportedly resisted the arrangement but was told by a gang member that "having sex was her job."

Federal and local prosecutors say the three men had obtained a cell phone from Radio Shack and solicited business in Jackson. Affidavits also say the phone was used as a "timer" during sexual interludes with the girls.

All three men reportedly charged customers $80 to $100 for each sex act and split the money without giving any to the girls. The coyotes charged the girls about $2,000 for their transportation into the United States, court documents show.

According to a press release from the U.S. attorney's office, local motels were used to prostitute at least one then-13-year-old girl between March and April 2004. Police responded to a dispute at a Jackson motel on April 18, 2004, after "customers were complaining about the price for sex."

Police said they came up empty-handed at the time in the search for the girls because they had hidden from authorities.

The convictions resulted from an investigation initiated by Jackson police with further assistance from the FBI and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A sentencing date has not been set.

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