Mexican sex traffickers on trial in New York

Newsday:

Three men from Mexico who investigators said smooth-talked women with tales of love and adoration are scheduled to go on trial today on federal sex trafficking charges.

In jail since they were arrested in February 2004, the men will be the first to be tried in the New York federal courts under the tough anti-trafficking law passed in 2000.

They face maximum terms of life in prison if convicted of trafficking and forced labor. The men rejected an offer to serve 14 years under a plea bargain.

Josue Flores Carreto, 38, his brother Gerardo Flores Carreto, 33, and Daniel Perez Alonso, 24, are charged with being members of a gang of human traffickers who smuggled young women from Mexico to city brothels. The women lived in two houses in Corona.

Prosecutors allege that the Carreto ring had close ties with relatives in the town of Tenancingo, Mexico, which has become notorious to U.S. law enforcement for sex trafficking. The ring is believed by officials to have operated from 1991 to early 2004, when investigators raided two apartments in Corona.

While federal prosecutor Daniel Alonso has charged that the defendants used deception, fraud and rape, as well as forced abortion, to compel the women to work as prostitutes, defense attorneys portray a different picture.

"The women are their wives, and they [the wives] love them," said attorney Michael Musa-Obregon, who is representing Gerardo Carreto, a professional pool player. "They were doing prostitution before they came here."

Musa-Obregon said the Carreto case is different from many of the Eastern European sex trafficking cases because, unlike European suspects, the Mexican men had personal relationships with the women involved. The prostitution, he said, was a joint venture between the men and women, who were free to come and go as they pleased, said attorney Telesforo Del Valle Jr., who is representing Josue Carreto.

Not so, said prosecutor Alonso, who in court papers has said the government will be presenting the testimony of at least eight of the Carreto women in which they will describe how they were in some case hoodwinked and forced to work in prostitution.

"The defendants' modus operandi was to recruit young, uneducated women and girls from impoverished areas of Mexico and use some combination of deception, fraud, coercion, rape, forced abortion, threats and physical violence to compel them to prostitute themselves," Alonso said in his memorandum.

The women charged $25 to $35 for a sex session with customers, but they rarely saw any money, Alonso said. Instead, investigators believe that half of the payment went to the brothel manager while the rest went to the defendants.

Two women, relatives of the Carretos, were arrested in Mexico and are expected to be extradited to the United States on related charges.

The government plans to have eight women, all identified as Jane Doe, take the stand to recount a litany of deception and abuse.

Jane Doe 1 is supposedly the wife of Josue Carreto and met him at age 17 in 1998 in Tenancingo. Soon after seducing her with promises of love and marriage, Josue Carreto married Jane Doe 1 and brought her illegally to New York, court records allege.

In New York, Jane Doe 1 had a hellish existence of beatings, threats and a forced abortion, prosecutors said.

The women are eligible to get special visas to allow them to remain in the United States.

"This is an example of when victims can take advantage of the laws," attorney Del Valle said about the visa benefit.

In the news:

Prostitution horror for young women

Dirty little secret in Corona

Women to Testify in Sex Trafficking Trial