Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Horrific stories of children, teens sold into sex slavery in their own words

Episode Date: March 5, 2020

The numbers are staggering. Nearly half a million children are being sold into the sex trade each year in the US. Young girls and boys are being groomed by predators online or being forcibly taken, an...d forced into performing sex for money. How do we stop it?National Human Trafficking Hotline 1-888-373-7888Joining Nancy Grace today: Michell Terry - Wellness 101 -Creator and owner of Wellness Now-Luxury Skincare with Natural Vegan Ingredients.  Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney, Fulton County, Georgia Jeff Cortese - Former FBI Special Agent Ashley Kelly - Licensed Clinical Social Worker/Expertise: Child Abuse, Sex Trafficking Kim Checkeye - Expert in working with trafficking survivors: The National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, The Samaritan Women Institute for Shelter Care Laurie Monteforte - Journalist, writer, and host of the documentary, "What Happened To The Girl Next Door" Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Nancy Grace is coming to Fox Nation. I want justice. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace premieres March 9th only on Fox Nation. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates between 240 and 325,000. That's half a million to 325,000 children are at risk for sex trafficking. Children who are often deemed to be, quote, runaways, are not runaways. They have been put into sex trafficking. Look around you.
Starting point is 00:00:52 I know it's hard to believe. When I first heard it, I poo-pooed it myself. But it's real. I'm sounding the alarm. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In 2016, the unit picked up this teenager named Kat. She'd been abducted and trafficked by men she met online. I actually got a call at 3 45 in the morning. She's a 16 year old who ran away from the city of Maricopa and ended up here in Phoenix. He told me 15 minutes 15 to 20 minutes was 100. 30 minutes was 120 to 150. And an hour was 200.
Starting point is 00:01:50 But it depended. And, like, that was all he told me. But I'm guessing that it went up more and more if they wanted more time. We're seeing more and more girls. They're just typical teenagers going through the woes of being a teenager and become a victim because they're vulnerable because the traffickers have access to them through their phones and through the internet. Believe it or not, it's happening and it is happening right here and right now on our beloved American soil. You don't believe me? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates between
Starting point is 00:02:25 240 and 325,000 children are at risk for sex trafficking. With me today, an all-star panel. You were just hearing from our friends at PBS Frontline Sex Trafficking in America. Can you imagine a little girl just three and a half years older than my twins are getting $100 for 20 minutes of sex with random men? It's almost too much for me to take in. With me, Monta Forte, journalist, writer of documentary What Happened to the Girl Next Door? You can find her at laurieatstrongmountainmedia.com.
Starting point is 00:03:10 Kim Chekai, shelter care advisor, the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance and the Samaritan Women Institute for Shelter Care. Ashley Kelly, clinical social worker, expertise sex trafficking, child abuse. Jeff Cortese, former FBI special agent, renowned defense attorney in the Atlanta jurisdiction, former prosecutor Daryl Cohen, and Michelle Terry. She works with children and has now created her own skincare vegan line of products and she is donating a portion of her profits to stop child sex trafficking. A normal person just like you or me who's devoting a percentage of her money to stop sex trafficking. First, I want to go straight out to Lori Monteforte, the host of What Happened to the Girl Next Door. Lori, thank you for being with us. What led you to create the documentary, What Happened to the Girl Next Door? What led to this documentary was
Starting point is 00:04:20 my work as a general assignment reporter in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. We started to notice a lot of these sex trafficking cases pop up. And if you know anything about the Poconos, it's this picturesque mountain community. People come here to ski and relax. Nobody was believing that sex trafficking was happening here. But we had some really dedicated detectives who were starting to notice. They started to do things. And I was doing story after story after story. And I said, this, there's something to this. We need to dig a little bit deeper. So the local district attorney partnered with me and the TV station where I was working to dive deeper into the issue. You know, with me, Lori Monteforte, who created the documentary,
Starting point is 00:05:04 What Happened to the Girl Next Door? Daryl Cohen, defense attorney, former prosecutor. Daryl, you and I prosecuted in one of the heaviest crime case areas in the country. At the time I was there, it was the murder capital of the country, inner city Atlanta. And, Daryl, I remember the first child trafficking case I had, but we didn't call it that then. We didn't know about child trafficking. It was a statutory rape case. It was two pimps who had gotten a then 12 turned 13 year old while she was with them. Two grown men were pimping out a then 12 yearold girl. Daryl, I will never forget
Starting point is 00:05:48 it. I looked with the vice cops for months on the street, literally three months, trying to find the girl. Finally, they called me at about five o'clock in the morning. I threw my clothes on. I got in the car and went down to Stewart Avenue, which was then the strip for prostitution, drugs, and so forth. I went into a flop house. I went into the room. They were all standing there. I came back out. I said, there's not a kid in there. And they went, go back in. It's the girl in the white boots. I went back in. She looked like she was a 35-year-old woman, Daryl. She had on a weave. She had on a ton of makeup. By now, it was like 7 o'clock in the morning.
Starting point is 00:06:28 She had on, I don't know, a lycra one-piece dress that was up to her underwear and shiny plastic boots that came up to her knees with high heels on them. But when she was cleaned up, all that makeup taken off, she looked like a 12-year-old girl. I also got a mistrial in my opening statement for calling the defendants pimps. I had it re-indicted to include misdemeanor pimping and retried them in four days. Daryl Cohen, we didn't know it was child sex trafficking then. That's not what we called it. Nancy, it was happening right under our noses and we didn't see it because it was so obvious that these were pimps, and these were girls that were obviously doing it because they wanted to get away from their house.
Starting point is 00:07:13 And nothing, nothing could have been further from the truth. They were part of a sex trafficking that we did not know existed, and now we know it, and now it has become a nationwide epidemic. And, you know, Daryl, I was just getting cases piece by piece. I didn't know it was part of a bigger sex trafficking epidemic in our country of children. First of all, what kind of perv wants to have sex, forcible sex, with a little girl or boy? Take a listen to this. The night she left home, Kat was driven 30 miles to Phoenix, where she met a third man, who she says was the most frightening of them all,
Starting point is 00:07:53 Bryant Flamati. Bryant was more of the enforcer, you could say. He told me, I don't give a **** who you are. He said, I own you. I own your body. I own you. And you have no say in what you do. The men took her to a hotel. And that black truck right there is Jesse Cisneros' truck. This is Jesse Cisneros. This is Bryant Flamate. They arrived to the hotel together. And then here comes Kat. And this is where Jesse explains, you have a client.
Starting point is 00:08:36 And I was like, what are you talking about? I have a client. A client? My rear end, a little girl, 14, 15 years old, has a sex client. I mean, I've got Lucy and the Scouts, for Pete's sake. She's playing the handbells at the church. She's an acolyte. We were working on her French test last night. Joining me right now is someone, in addition to Lori Montaforte, Kim Chekai, Ashley Kelly, Jeff Cortese, and Daryl Cohen, this is a regular person like you and me who has taken it upon herself to make a difference in this world. Michelle Terry is with me. She is a nanny. She's a babysitter. I know her well, and she is now devoting part of her income to stop child sex trafficking. Michelle Terry, why? Because it's very important to me. I've always wanted to be a part of something big to give back to help. So I created this line. This is very dear to my heart. I created this line to help women that have come out of sex trafficking and that are in these nonprofit organizations where they need help to get them back on their feet, whether it be education, whether it be shelter, clothing, and etc. So I created this line. It's all vegan. It's all 100% natural. A portion of the
Starting point is 00:10:09 profits will go back to a local organization here in Atlanta. We know right here in Atlanta, it's one of the top cities in the country with the sex trafficking issue because we have our international airport here. And there's a lot of girls missing in these neighborhoods. They're, like, vanishing off the streets. And it's very sad. And I want to help. I just want to help.
Starting point is 00:10:38 Michelle, I recall in D.C. a series of little girls go missing, and it was a big deal. Then it just disappeared. Something else took the forefront. I'm looking at your line right now. Let's see wellness-now-101.myshopify.com. Well, that's certainly a mouthful, Michelle Terry. How am I supposed to remember that? Is there any easier way for me to get it? Good gravy. Wellness Now. Tell me how. Can I just put in Wellness Now 101? Would that work? Yes. You can do Wellness Now 101. You can find me on Facebook and you can find me on Shopify and you can find me on Instagram. Okay. Very quickly. How do I find you? I mean, this is the first time I've ever
Starting point is 00:11:22 heard the word Shopify. Okay. Cause you know, I hate shopping. I would never think to look up Shopify. What is, what did you say about Facebook? That's a name I know. What? Yes. Yes. Yes. Facebook, you can go on Facebook, Nancy, Wellness Now 101. Okay. What was the other one? Instagram, Wellness Now. Okay. Yes. I'm familiar with that. I looked at all the pictures of the twins. So I can find it at Wellness 101 on Instagram. What else? And Facebook, Instagram.
Starting point is 00:11:53 Those are my two big places where you can find it out right now. What is body butter and sugar scrub? Hold on just a moment. Yeah, they're all natural. Jackie, did you see this? They're all natural. Everyone really loves the product. Okay, wait a moment. Yeah, they're all natural. Jackie, did you see this? They're all natural. Everyone really loves the product. Okay, wait a minute.
Starting point is 00:12:09 I'm somehow getting off the point of sex trafficking, and I'm going to circle back on that, but take a listen to this. He was like, you're going to have sex with this man. He was like, you're going to tell him you're 19 and your name is rose and this stranger comes in he did those things to me he puts the money in the drawer and then he leaves it was like my whole world just collapsed Guys, Nancy Grace here. We are heading straight into Breaking Crime and Justice News. But first, how can you keep yourself and your children safe? I have investigated and prosecuted literally thousands of felony cases. I have covered literally thousands of cases of missing people, adults, and children, unsolved
Starting point is 00:13:17 homicides, violent crimes. After all the cases, after speaking to all the victims, all the police, all the witnesses over years, what can we do about it? I don't want to just sit back and report on it. I want to take action. And I know you must feel the same way. You don't want to just hear about crime. You want to do something about it and do something to stop it. And here is the news.
Starting point is 00:13:46 Don't Be a Victim, Fighting Back Against America's Crime Wave, a brand new book. After interviewing literally hundreds of crime victims and police, we put our knowledge into Don't Be a Victim. This book is for everyone who wants to stay safe or who wants to keep your loved one safe. CrimeOnline.com, pre-order now and know that portions of our proceeds goes to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. He was like, you're going to have sex with this man. He was like, you're going to tell him you're 19 and your name is Rose. And this stranger comes in. He did those things to me.
Starting point is 00:14:47 He puts the money in the drawer and then he leaves. It was like my whole world just collapsed. Over the course of a week, she was taken to homes and hotel rooms and repeatedly sold for sex. Until someone saw her outside the hotel, became suspicious, and called the police. She's the only victim I've had who could tell me specific room numbers of hotel rooms that they had been taken to. When she could recall so much detail,
Starting point is 00:15:29 that helped us tremendously in tracking down who all these players were. Our friends at PBS Frontline, sex trafficking in America, it's happening now. I didn't believe it. I thought it was an anomaly. It's not. 300,000 children plus are going to be sex trafficked in America this year. Many of them counted as runaways. It's overwhelming to me. And those stats are from the U.S. Department. It is a form of modern slavery, smuggling, trading of children, forced labor or sex exploitation. You know, y'all can all get mad at me, but do you remember LT Lawrence Taylor, the big hit on Dancing with the Stars, the football star? He ordered up a 13-year-old girl like she was a pizza to his room
Starting point is 00:16:23 and she got a black eye from her pimp to get in there and have sex with Lawrence Taylor. That's really hard for me to believe. He didn't know she was underage. And then everybody's cheering for him on Dancing with the Stars. I mean, joining me, Kim Chekai, Shelter Care Advisor, National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, the Samaritan Women Institute for Shelter Care. Kim Chekai, why is it so hard for people to believe this is happening right under our noses, as Daryl Cohen said, right under my nose? I didn't know that one case was part of something much bigger. Because in the United States of America, prostitution is what? It's the oldest job in the
Starting point is 00:17:02 book. And so we don't see a change. We need to change the way we think. We need to change the way we process. We need to begin to be looking at these children, even as an adult woman, if she's over the age of 18, but she's been sold from the time she's been eight, nine, 10. We can't just pretend that after all the trauma, after all the horror that she has been exposed to, that it's supposed to go away and she's supposed to live a normal life. It doesn't happen. It's here. It's on our noses. There's brothels. There are brothels all over the United States where women are being sold 30, 40 times a day with a quota that they have to come back with. Guys, take a listen to
Starting point is 00:17:45 this. At 17, she got pregnant. Her trafficker continued forcing her to have sex with strangers. Being pregnant is a fantasy for men, a pregnant woman. And so they were actually paying a lot more for a pregnant woman. After she gave birth, a family member took the child. The trafficker kept Kate. At 18, that trafficker sold her to another pimp. The new slave keeper told her he paid $20,000 for her and it would be up to her to earn that money back. He forced her to go on multiple dates every day, living in fear and despair.
Starting point is 00:18:21 But she never let the buyer see that. You put on a front and a mask in a way. You have to make them think that you like it because if not, they're not going to spend the money. If she didn't make money, her trafficker would severely beat her. Oh, that breaks my heart so much. Lori Monteforte, writer and host of the documentary You Just Heard, What Happened to the Girl Next Door. It's so hard for me to take in while I'm busy about Lucy and John David meeting their requirements to make first class and scouts and become eagles.
Starting point is 00:18:59 These girls are out there, forced to have sex, getting beaten if they don't go along. Ashley, we were just hearing Lori Montaforte's documentary, What Happened to the Girl Next Door. Ashley, why don't the girls just call 911? It's a really complicated question because a lot of them are threatened with their family getting hurt or killed with themselves getting hurt or killed um kept in dog cages um there's a lot of different techniques that pimps and traffickers use um to keep girls quiet and keep them loyal um it's a very complex issue for sure and i I really love that you're talking about the Scout because that's how I got my first exposure to child sex trafficking.
Starting point is 00:19:52 With our local Girl Scout troop here in Phoenix, we have the social justice program and we provided Scout services to girls who had been trafficked in detention centers and in group homes and in community programming. So that was my first go-around about 10 years ago in the Girl Scout program. And I met a lot of young girls. And Phoenix is a hot spot for sex trafficking for children specifically who had horrific stories of their pimps who tattooed or branded their faces with stars to remind them what would happen if they told anybody. Who would throw them out of cars on the freeway, leave them by dumpsters. Just horrific, horrific threat techniques. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. He offered to give me a ride up to Phoenix.
Starting point is 00:20:56 And with everything in my head, I was like, you know, it's just a ride, you know, like nothing's going to happen. When he got here, I climbed out of my bedroom window and got into his car he was like I'm not dropping you off and I was like you know what are you talking about he covered my eyes so I couldn't see where we were going it was really dark their plan was to get Kat and utilize her for the purpose of sex trafficking. They knew it going in. Kat was the unsuspecting one who had no idea, unfortunately. And that's how her nightmare began.
Starting point is 00:21:34 He told me, I don't give a f*** who you are. He said, I own you. I own your body. I own you. And you have no say in what you do. You know, it's almost so horrific that people don't believe it. With me today, an all-star panel. You were just hearing from our friends at PBS Frontline, Sex Trafficking in America.
Starting point is 00:21:57 With me, Lori Monteforte, journalist, writer of documentary, What Happened to the Girl Next Door. You can find her at laurieatstrongmountainmedia.com. Kim Chekai, shelter care advisor, the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance and the Samaritan Women Institute for Shelter Care. Ashley Kelly, clinical social worker, expertise, sex trafficking, child abuse. Jeff Cortese, former FBI special agent, renowned defense attorney in the Atlanta jurisdiction, former prosecutor Daryl Cohen, and Michelle Terry. She works with children and has now created her own skincare vegan line of products and she is donating a portion of her profits to stop child sex
Starting point is 00:22:50 trafficking to jeff cortezzi former fbi special agent earlier uh michelle terry who has launched her own skin line um vegan skin line wellness now, a portion of her profits going to stop sex trafficking. Jeff Cortese, we heard Michelle mentioned Atlanta. We heard Ashley Kelly mentioned Phoenix as a hot spot. Why are certain cities, but it's not exclusive. This happens in rural areas too, but why are certain cities hubs of sex trafficking, including child sex trafficking? Yeah, that's a great question, Nancy. I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, location of criminal activity, basic supply and demand. You know, another factor that we haven't really touched on in this discussion is, you know, oftentimes coyotes smuggling across the border turn those whom they're bringing into the country into slaves, unbeknownst to them when they when they arrange to be brought into the country. to have higher volume. But it's going to come down to a lot of illicit gang and drug activity, population, and basic supply and demand. Take a listen to this. I felt disgusted,
Starting point is 00:24:15 but at the same time, I thought that's what he wanted from me. I thought that that's, I was trying to please him in a way. Experts say Kate was a victim of a process called grooming. During that process, traffickers carefully execute mind games. Their schemes form psychological chains. Emily Paznak-Lapshik is an end trafficking program officer with UNICEF. That's the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. The charity helps at-risk children. She explained that first, traffickers make the victims think they're in love and then gradually replace love
Starting point is 00:24:51 with abuse. Children are very malleable and especially if that child has been abused in the home, which many trafficking victims have experienced prior abuse, they're used to that cycle of abuse. Kate told us she was sexually abused as a child and she felt the same shame when she was sold for sex. She felt used, dirty, and disposable. I used tissue over and over again. This little girl says she felt like used tissue, like Kleenex. You're hearing from what happened to the girl next door. When you hear a story like that from what happened to the girl next door, Michelle Terry, stories like that must have motivated you to actually do something about it. Explain. Yes, Nancy. It truly breaks my heart.
Starting point is 00:25:40 Again, being here in Atlanta, we see it every single day. We hear about it on the news, how many women are missing. The number is so big that I think,old, 15-year-old, a grown woman. I mean, they're actually kidnapping grown women and throwing them into vans and they're vanishing off the street. And it's horrific. It's just horrible. Listen, me and my parents have been arguing a lot about just things that have been going on throughout like my life and things that were going on in their life. And it seemed like they were blaming me for everything. and I just couldn't take it anymore. I had Facebook, I had Instagram, I had all these things, Snapchat, everything like that. My friend told me about this app.
Starting point is 00:26:34 It was called Meet Me. It was like you meet people and you talk to them. It didn't really seem like it was that harmful. This is his chatting history. There's Kat and there's Rafael. Through the Meet Me app, Kat began chatting with a man named Rafael Quiroz. They exchanged messages for almost a month. She talked to him about the struggles that she was having at home with her family and fights that she was having and he was just playing on her vulnerabilities. Rafael introduced Kat to a friend of his named Jesse Cisneros.
Starting point is 00:27:11 So Jesse started corresponding with her on Snapchat and Jesse was the one who actually arranged to meet up with her. I went to go wake her up for school and I I looked in her room, and I didn't see her. I drove all over town looking for her, and she wasn't there, and that's when we started realizing that something wasn't right. Kat's parents filed a missing persons report. National Human Trafficking Hotline, 888-373-7888. If you think you know something, 888-373-7888. And for those of you who want to know more, go to CrimeOnline.com. crime stories with nancy grace when kate was a little girl she dreamed of para wedding across
Starting point is 00:28:17 a big stage or prepping fancy meals in a big restaurant kitchen. A chance meeting led her dreams to fall apart. A human trafficker sold Kate into sexual servitude. I never wanted to do it. I never wanted to do it. I never thought I would be doing this. It all started with a glance at a train station. Kate was on a trip to visit a friend when a young man told her she was beautiful. I'm 14 years old starting to get into boys.
Starting point is 00:28:46 I, you know, this guy likes me. Come on now. Like, he's really nice. He's handsome. They exchanged phone numbers, then started communicating often. She told her parents he was her boyfriend. He showered her with clothes and gifts. Kate thought they were in love and she
Starting point is 00:29:05 wouldn't do anything to make him happy. That included selling her body. She was just 14 the first time he took her to a hotel room, gave her alcohol and marijuana, and then told her to have sex with a stranger. You are hearing from our friend Lori Montaforte's documentary, What Happened to the Girl Next Door? That's just a tiny, tiny sample of thousands of young girls and boys that are sex trafficked in our country every year. With me, Lori Montaforte, who created that documentary. Lori, we keep getting the question, why don't some of the teens call 911 and get away? This is something that so many people asked throughout the entire making of the documentary, the screening, and then when it was on TV.
Starting point is 00:29:54 Sometimes even after seeing it, they couldn't comprehend, why can't these girls get away? A lot of times, they don't have access to a phone. That would be a basic problem. But oftentimes, it's much deeper than that. These girls have been traumatized and formed what are called trauma bonds with their traffickers. So oftentimes they feel like they love them and that they have to do these things to please the trafficker. They've set up this mind game that the trafficker is the only person who will ever love them. And even if they call for help, no one will help them. So they're trapped. They're trapped in this mental abuse
Starting point is 00:30:32 combined with the physical realities that they might not even have a phone with them. In my documentary, I interviewed one girl who eventually was so beaten and battered and abused that she tried to run away. She did manage to make it to a hospital, but traffickers have infiltrated themselves so deeply into her life that the trafficker was listed as her emergency contact at the hospital. So instead of calling someone who actually cared, the hospital brought the trafficker to her,
Starting point is 00:31:02 and then she was brought right back into it. So it's not as easy as, oh, why don't you just escape? You know, I've dealt with that many times in court with battered women syndrome, when people would ask, why are you prosecuting him? Because if she wanted out of the relationship, she could have just left. She could have called 911. It's not that simple, and especially when you're dealing with a teen girl or even younger that is being sex trafficked. Take a listen to this. She then met Baruti Hobson, who invited her to stay with him.
Starting point is 00:31:33 Within days, the 15-year-old was having sex with Hobson and started working for him as a prostitute. Hobson took provocative photos and posted them to sites like Backpage.com. He really capitalized on the fact that my parents would be highly disappointed and not love me anymore. I'm dirty. He was very convincing in all of that. While working for Hobson, she was arrested in a sting operation, where JS told the police officer that she was 18 years old, and they let her go. But before she left, an officer took a photo of her. Later, as her parents kept pushing, investigators were able to use that photo to track her down to a posting on Backpage.com and planned a rescue operation to save the 15-year-old JS. To see
Starting point is 00:32:19 her come home and have that light gone out of her eyes was painful. I didn't think it would ever return. She told investigators that she was sold up to 15 times a day. You are hearing from our friends at NBC talking about a teen girl being sold for sex up to 15 times a day. First, people found out about her on Backpage. I don't know if you've ever heard about that, but it's a classified ad website that was the largest marketplace for buying and selling sex before the feds busted it, including child sex. Jeff Cortese, how does it work? How do you get a girl that is at a party, let's say, or hanging out on the corner with her
Starting point is 00:33:09 friends or at a bus stop? How does that child, who may even be walking to school in the morning, yes, that is a real scenario, end up in sex trafficking and they're reported as a runaway or a missing kid. Nobody has any idea what's really going on. How does it happen, Jeff? Nancy, I think you noted earlier some really important things, one of which being changing the way we think about sex trafficking. You know, these traffickers, they tend to target the most vulnerable, runaways, foster children, abused kids, as we've already touched on. And, you know, they're masters at manipulation. They're going to find what it is that this child needs, wants, and they're going to exploit that. And they're going to massage it,
Starting point is 00:33:56 and they're going to keep working until they can manipulate this person into getting them at least where they need them to be. And then after that, they might load them up with drugs and use force, fraud, or coercion, as we call it, to get them to do exactly what they want them to do. Ashley Kelly with me, licensed clinical social worker, expertise, sex trafficking, and child abuse. Ashley, very often I have heard people that are not in the know state that rape is not a violent crime, that child molestation is not a violent crime,
Starting point is 00:34:30 that these victims can blend back into society and resume their normal lives. That's not true. I'm certainly no medical doctor or a shrink, but having dealt with literally thousands of child molestation victims, rape victims. I know that's not true. You're never the same, Ashley. You're right. I can't think of a more traumatizing thing than your body, mind, and spirit being violated by somebody else. Particularly when our brains are still developing, you lose things and experiences that you could have had or were anticipated to have because somebody decided to violate that for you.
Starting point is 00:35:14 I think it's absolutely a violent crime of every level. The people that I've worked with who've been assaulted in various different ways, particularly starting with molestation when they're a child and onward to even sex trafficking. I've even heard the term child prostitute being used to describe victims of this. And there's no such thing as a child prostitute because children can't consent to sex. And a lot of these people who get into it are forced into it, coerced into it when their children become adults. And even though they're now of consenting age, there wasn't consent in the beginning. And it was a forced, coerced, desperate situation that they've had to continue to go into because they know it. So I would agree, it's very much a violent crime.
Starting point is 00:36:04 Listen to this. Some of my favorite hobbies are collecting porcelain dolls and playing soccer, of course. JS grew up in a typical middle-class home with a great family. I was a happy kid. I did sports, played musical instruments, violin, piano. I was really kind of like the jack of all trades, wanted to do everything. I was really happy. At 15 years old, she started to fall behind in one of her classes. Scared to show her parents her report card, she made a plan.
Starting point is 00:36:42 I ran away, got on a city bus, never done that. Didn't even know how city buses worked. I was like, everything's fine. She made her way to a homeless shelter where she met a young woman who promised to help take care of her. The two went to a party where she was raped. Before that party, she was a virgin. I wanted to keep my innocence for like a special person and like I wasn't able to. Our friends at NBC, that child was then, that teen girl forced into child sex trafficking. National Human Trafficking Hotline 888-373-7888. If you think you know something, 888-373-7888. And for those of you who want to know more, go to CrimeOnline.com
Starting point is 00:37:29 with this and all other breaking crime and justice news. Join us tomorrow for more of our investigation into sex trafficking on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Nancy Grace. Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.

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