CSECArchive 2008–2016

CSEC in Robertson County, Tennessee (2009)

A CSEC case from 2009 in Robertson County, Tennessee, United States.

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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

Police started investigating the Wests in early 2009 after an anonomous informant alerted police that students from a Robertson County High School were being hired to work as prostitutes. Federal agents picked up a 16 year old girl in early August as part of an investigation into a prostitution ring. The girl had been recruited and told to tell customers that she was really 18. On Aug. 3, Teresa West checked into a Murfreesboro hotel room and then went to a second room. Later that night, a federal affadavit said, a 16 year old girl went to the first room. She was picked up and later told investigators that she was still in high school. She said that during the summer she had seen clients 20 or 30 times. Typically clients paid her $110 with $40 going to Teresa West.

Response and intervention

Teresa West and her son and daughter are charged in federal court with using a minor for commercial sex. The son was released to his father's custody; the daughter was also released. The mother is also charged in state court with trafficking for sexual servitude and promoting prostitution. She has been jailed since Aug. 4, and faced the Grand Sessions Court today (Aug. 19, 2009) . This current case involves one sixteen year old girl. She is released; no information is known about aftercare, nor is further information available about the other girls recruited from the high school.

Nearby cases

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CSEC2011

Nashville, Tennessee, United States, 2011

United States US

Prontiss Houseworth, 18, of Conyers, Georgia was arrrested Friday August 26, 2011 at the Knights Inn on Spring Street in Nashville, TN and charged with four counts of trafficking for sexual servitude, one count of promoting prostitution and a weapon charge for allegedly carrying brass knuckles. Police found four young women — two 18-year-olds, a 23-year-old and a 24-year-old — with Houseworth but consider them victims in Houseworth’s alleged crimes. According to police, the man forced the women to travel with him from Atlanta to Nashville where an undercover officer, responding to the online ad, met two of the women at the motel and made a deal to have sex with them for $180 plus a $20 tip. One of the alleged victims told police Houseworth threatened to kill the women and their families if the women didn’t cooperate with him, calling them “slaves” and saying “the only way that they could leave was in a body bag,” according to a police affidavit. One of the women also allegedly told police Houseworth punched her in the head and duct-taped her hands together and her mouth shut.

Needs a sourceArchive 2008–2016

CSEC2009

Nashville, Tennessee, United States, 2009

United States US

DOJ Press Release - 12/24/09 ================= Nashville, Tennessee Woman Sentenced on Sex Trafficking Charges . http://memphis.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/me122409.htm . Nashville, TN Cristina Andres Perfecto pleaded guilty on Aug. 28, 2007, to two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion and sex trafficking of a juvenile in the Western District of Tennessee, as well as one count of conspiracy in the Middle District of Tennessee. . Perfecto’s co-defendant, Juan Mendez, pleaded guilty to child sex trafficking and sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion. Perfecto and Mendez each admitted to fraudulently luring two young girls, including a 13-year-old, from rural Mexico to Tennessee with the intent of forcing them into prostitution. . Both further admitted that Mendez, with Perfecto’s assistance, physically, verbally, and sexually abused the victims in order to coerce them into prostitution. . Nine other defendants had earlier pleaded guilty in this same case for crimes including: child sex trafficking, conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens, conspiracy to commit money laundering, enticing an individual to travel in interstate commerce to commit prostitution, and violating the Mann Act.

1 sourceArchive 2008–2016

Child Labor2020

Nashville, Tennessee, United States, 2020

United States US

A 16-year-old Mexican worker recruited through a church youth program died on a Nashville construction site in 2020. His family's attorney alleged that the construction company engaged in human trafficking by recruiting young Mexican men for hazardous work, in violation of child labor laws.

1 source