South Coast Highway, Oceanside CA, United States
The case was investigated under the Innocence Lost National Initiative, the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation-Obscenity Section, by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the FBI. The US attorney's office "aggresively prosecuted" the case. The federal government was able to apply jusrisdiction to the case because the camera used to take exploitative pictures of the child had been manufactured in Korea. Federal powers also applied because of interstate commerce that took place in the motel and because of the use of the Internet.
Location
United States · South Coast Highway, Oceanside CA · 2008 (location generalized to protect survivors)
Response & intervention
After being picked up by her traffickers on El Cajon Blvd. in San Diego, CA, the victim was taken to a motel. Here her traffickers beat her and forced her to pose for sexually explicit photographs so that they could solicit “johns” on the Internet to engage in commercial sex acts with her. After her traffickers fell asleep, the girl escaped to a nearby convenience store where she then called the police.
Legal aftercare
The US attorney's office took on the victim's case and aggressively prosecuted the traffickers.
The victim was able to escape and call 9-1-1 from a nearby convenience store.
Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don't have a verifiable source on file yet — use “Report a problem” below to add one.