Four arrested on human trafficking charges, sexual assault of a teen

By Mariah Medina, Staff Writer
Updated 12:40 am, Saturday, December 19, 2015

Police arrested four people on human trafficking and sexual assault charges late Friday in a case involving a 16-year-old girl who said she’d been sold to one couple for $4,000.
Authorities arrested Rebecca Nicole Alvarez, 22, Christopher Castoreno, 34, Veronica Ann Diaz, 26, and Adrian Colon, 44, each face a trafficking charge. Alvarez, Castoreno and Diaz are also being charged with sexual assault while Colon has been charged with attempted sexual assault, police said.

On Dec. 15, San Antonio officers responded to a disturbance at a pawn shop where a 16-year-old girl told police she was being followed by Alvarez and Castoreno. After police were able to track down the couple and questioned them, they let Alvarez and Castoreno go.

“It was after we let them go that the complainant made the outcry that she had been sexually assaulted, and held against her will, and had been basically trafficked and forced into having sex with other people because of this couple,” said Sgt.Jesse Salame, an SAPD spokesman.

After further investigation, officers determined that the sexual assault allegedly occurred around the last week of November, when the teenager was introduced to Colon and Diaz through a mutual friend, police said. The girl was forced to have sex with the couple, but when they asked her to have sex with other people and she refused, the couple allegedly sold her to Alvarez and Castoreno for $4,000, according to police.

“This couple then supplied her with drugs, got her intoxicated and had sex with her and forced her to have sex with other people at various locations around town,” Salame said. “She was able to get a hold of a cell phone at one of the houses she was taken to and that's when she called her friend, and her friend called her mother, and that's when they called police.”
The victim told police she was taken to a motel on the South Side and a house on the East Side among other locations that she could not remember because she had been given drugs and alcohol, authorities said.

While police are not sure if there are any other victims involved, Salame said SAPD was working to find other suspects involved in the alleged trafficking of the girl.

Rebecca Alvarez
Photo: Bexar County Sheriff's Office




Adrian Colon



Christopher Castoreno



Veronica Diaz














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