#sex-trafficking

#sex-trafficking

OAKLAND -At 3:15 a.m. on Dec. 19, long after most local business owners had shuttered their doors, two brothers left the back of their lingerie store in a neighborhood known for sex trafficking and headed to their car in an adjacent alleyway. That's when the gunman struck, according to police, firing multiple shots into a 2016 Toyota Prius and striking both men inside. One died before EMTs could take him to a hospital. His brother was struck in the arm but survived, authorities said.

Gonzalez said one of the victims, a 23-year-old woman, needed to raise money for her ill father, and was referred to the mother and daughter by a friend in January 2024. She was forced to work from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. six days a week and was required to split her prostitution profits 50/50 with her new bosses. The victim worked out of alleged massage parlors at 2281 McDonald Ave. and 1204 Coney Island Ave., officials said.

Fleming allegedly took the child's phone and purse, including her high school identification. The victim then had to dress in lingerie that Fleming gave her before taking her and another female to a street prostitution track in East New York, known as Penn Track, a stretch of roadway along Pennsylvania Avenue near Wortman and Georgia avenues. Here, the victim was forced to solicit men for sexual acts in return for money from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Howard "Howie" Rubin, a once-prominent Salomon Brothers investment banker featured in the 1985 Wall Street expose "Liar's Poker," must remain in a federal jail in Brooklyn indefinitely as he fights sex-trafficking charges, a judge ruled on Wednesday. It was the third bail denial for Rubin, accused of paying women, many of them former Playboy models, $5,000 to engage in "fetish play," then constraining and torturing them, including by electrocuting them against their will.

The law is meant to offer hope to people who are facing long sentences for crimes related to their victimization: women who kill their abusers, for instance, or victims of sex trafficking who harm the people who have trafficked them. These people are often referred to as criminalized survivors, recognizing their dual status as victims and defendants. Similar laws have already been passed in California, Illinois, New York, Georgia, and Oklahoma and proposed in several other states.

She was 17 and a high school junior in Florida. She was working at McDonald's. And she was living in and out of a homeless shelter. Hoping to save up to buy braces to fix her teeth, she falsely advertised herself in 2017 as 18 years old on a website that matches men looking for companionship with young women looking to make money.

By the time Jeffery Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he had established an enormous network of wealthy and influential friends. Emails made public this week show the crime did little to diminish the desire of that network to stay connected to the billionaire financier. Thousands of documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday offer a new glimpse into what Epstein's relationships with business executives, reporters, academics and political players looked like over a decade.

One of Henriques' victims was a 17-year-old prospective student, to whom he gave a tour of the college April 25, the U.S. Attorney's office said. After reviewing her tour registration form, which listed her date of birth, he asked her what grade she was in, and she told him what local high school she attended. Hours after finishing the tour, Henriques texted the victim using the phone number included on her admissions form and offered to pay her $400 for "some fun."

"don't make me kill you"

What my prosecutors felt here is that for Mr. Cai, who was exposing our victim to the human traffickers, the sex traffickers, and that's what made him qualify for pimping and pandering, said San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe. He basically turned her over to the sex traffickers, who have been trafficking her on a true human trafficking level.