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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
A false promise of a $500-a-week baby-sitting job lured illegal immigrant Marlene Harpi from New York City to Indianapolis in 2001. But when she arrived here, the job turned out to be quite different. Police say Harpi was held in a Westside Indianapolis brothel and forced to have sex with at least 15 to 20 men a day. Two Hispanic teenage girls, who like Harpi had been recruited from New York, were also prisoners of the prostitution ring. Her captors warned her that she would "disappear" if she tried to flee. After three days at the West 16th Street house, Harpi was taken to a duplex on Sherman Drive just north of East Washington Street. There, her sex slavery continued for another three days.
Response and intervention
Prosecutors opened a case but had to drop charges against her alleged captors because of its unusual nature. They also lost Harpi, their chief witness. She became afraid and left a hotel in which she was placed for her own safety. Marion County prosecutors called in the FBI after Harpi ran away, but agents were unable to find her. Barbara Crawford, the prosecutor assigned to the case, said she has been told Harpi went back to her native country. Prosecutors, believing the case was weak without Harpi, moved in April 2002 to dismiss all charges against her five captors in Marion Superior Court. Harpi then returned to the West 16th Street house, from which she escaped and contacted police after roughly a week. She gave police enough evidence to search both homes and arrest her captors on charges of criminal confinement and promoting prostitution. Kevin Corcoran at (317) 444-2750. Kevin Corcoran kevin.corcoran@indystar.com