Officials: Two Suffolk bars hosted sex-slave ring
Posted on August 10, 2009 by Robert Kessler for newsday.com
Two dozen female bartenders at two Suffolk bars raided Monday as part of a federal crackdown on a reputed large sexual-slavery ring were being questioned late Monday by federal agents to determine the extent of the operation, law enforcement officials said.
The agents were also trying to determine which of the women, most of whom were undocumented immigrants from Central America, would be eligible for expedited citizenship as victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking, according to officials and sources.
More than 100 federal agents and police fanned out in Suffolk County early Monday morning to raid the bars, also known as cantinas, which were patronized mainly by undocumented immigrants, according to federal prosecutors Demetri Jones and James Miskiewicz.
The federal agents and Suffolk police arrested three people who they sai ran the cantinas, describing them as leaders of the ring, on charges of slavery, trafficking in sexual workers and harboring illegal immigrants, according to the prosecutors and court papers. The three “forced and conspired to force the victims in engage in various sex acts in exchange for money,” according to the papers filed by the prosecutors.
Some of the women were raped numerous times by one of the operators and they were kept in line by beatings, and threats of death or being reported to immigration officials for deportation, according to court papers.
The two bars were La Hija del Mariachi in Farmingville (above and middle) and Sonidos de la Frontera in Ronkonkoma (bottom).
Those arrested were identified as: Antonio Rivera, 34, of Patchogue; his sister, Jasmin Rivera, 31, of Medford; and John Whaley, 29, of Bellport.
The three were arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Michael Orenstein at U.S. District Court in Central Islip. They were held without bail as dangers to the community. They were not required to plead to the charges, for which they could face up to life in prison if convicted.
Federal public defender Tracey Gaffey declined to comment afterward, as did the prosecutors.
While dozens of so-called “cantina girls” have been working in the bars, the raids are based on evidence provided by four of the women, who have been cooperating with investigators, according to court papers and sources.
One of the women told investigators that she entered the country illegally and was recruited by the operators of the ring as a waitress when she was 17, the court papers said.
She said she was repeatedly raped by one of the operators, according to court papers. To stop the rapes, she said she created an imaginary boyfriend. But her attacker told her “Boyfriend! Watch what I’m going to do to you. Your boyfriend will never want to touch you again.”
Shortly after, a security guard at the club bashed “her head into the pavement of the parking lot” breaking several teeth and causing black eyes, bruises and lacerations, the papers said.
Several of the women said that they had been recruited to work as waitresses through ads on Spanish-language Internet sites and newspapers, promising pay of $40 a day plus tips, and half of the price of the $20 shots of tequila they sold to the undocumented clientele, according to papers.
Brookhaven Town Supervisor Mark Lesko said the town had been cooperating with the police and federal investigation.
Lesko said the women’s situation was similar to that of two Indonesian women, Enung and Samirah, who were enslaved by an Muttontown couple. Lesko, then the federal prosecutor on that case, said the two Indonesians were also offered expedited citizenship as victims of slavery.
Click here to read the full article “Officials: Two Suffolk bars hosted sex-slave ring” on newsday.com
(Photo credit: Newsday/Photo by James Carbone)
