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What happened
Rubi Bertaud-Cabrera Age: 27 Charged with one count of importing an alien for an immoral purpose; two counts of bringing in and harboring aliens; one count of transporting for prostitution; and one count of failing to file a factual statement about an alien. Police are now looking for suspected human traffickers Efrain Bertaud-Cabrera, who is described as 5'5", 200 pounds, and about 30-40 years old, and Marcos Antonio Pacheco-Martinez, 5'9", 160 pounds and about 25-35 years old. Victim had been smuggled into this country illegally after Bertaud-Cabrera's mother in Mexico approached the victim's mother about traveling to the United States to care for Bertaud-Cabrara's children, the affidavit said. The offer was first extended when the victim was 16, but her mother resisted until four years later. The victim then traveled to Altar, Mexico, to meet someone who would smuggle her across the border. She paid the smuggler 1,200 pesos, or about $100, the affidavit said. She first was taken to a "stash house" in the Phoenix area for several days, then moved to Atlanta and ultimately to the house on Ginger Lane. She initially did housework there, but Bertaud-Cabrera then told her that she would have to work as a prostitute to pay off her smuggling fee, the affidavit said. The Victim escaped from her alleged abductors and was walking around the Pepperhill subdivision about 7 p.m., according to a police incident report. A woman in the neighborhood saw the victim and called police, said Spencer Pryor, police public information officer. “She looked like a child and she looked confused,” said the caller, a Smoketree Court resident, who asked that her name be withheld. “I didn’t stick around to hear what was wrong with her. I just called police and left.” Using a Spanish-speaking officer as an interpreter, the victim led police to a house on Ginger Lane where she said she had been held against her will for three weeks.
Response and intervention
While at the Ginger Lane house, the victim saw two girls who were changed out on Sunday nights and who worked as prostitutes, the affidavit said. Police found about $11,000 in bundles with "CA" and "AZ" listed on them inside the Ginger Lane home, along with wire transfer receipts, several identification documents, empty condom wrappers and business cards used to advertise a telephone number to be called for the prostitutes, the affidavit said. Still looking for last two perpetrators. The victim refused to cooperate and wanted to leave, but Bertaud-Cabrera and two male co-defendants prevented her from leaving, the warrant said. Bertaud-Cabrera used intimidation and physical force to keep the victim in the house, the warrant said. The 20-year-old trafficking victim could not even wipe the tears from her eyes because her hands were shackled tightly to her waist. The scene was a hearing in U.S. District Court last week, and the young woman in question had come to the U.S. from Mexico City to take what she thought was a nanny’s job in Charleston, S.C., according to court documents. Two weeks after she reached her destination, having been smuggled through Phoenix and Atlanta along the way, the victim was held against her will and forced into prostitution. She was resourceful enough to free herself and report her captors to authorities, but in an ironic twist, she now finds herself jailed by federal officials. The reason: She tried to return to Mexico against prosecutors’ wishes. They need her to remain in the U.S. so she can help them put her captors behind bars. The woman, whose name is being withheld by The Arizona Republic, today remains imprisoned in a federal detention facility in Florence. http://tucsoncitizen.com/arizona-news/2011/03/05/victim-of-sex-trafficking-awaits-trial-in-arizona-jail/ However, the public is reminded that neither a complaint nor indictment are evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/01/25/1941043/woman-denies-sex-trafficking-role.html#ixzz1NZVd0Szj http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/jan/25/captivity-suspect-pleads-not-guilty/ http://newsgeni.us/?p=58778 http://www.examiner.com/immigration-reform-in-national/illegal-alien-sex-slavery-operation-discovered-south-carolina