tv Sex Slaves MSNBC June 24, 2016 11:00pm-12:01am PDT
11:00 pm
giving the middle finger to the establishment is not such a great idea, maybe that has consequences, we'll see. i don't know. >> that partying too hard at elections can lead to a very long hangover. catherine rampell, thank you. that wraps up our broadcast this hour. it has been quite a week of news and developments. thank you for spending time with us. they're all american girls raised to believe it could never happen to them. >> everybody likes me and wanted to be my friend. >> that sex slavery is reserved for foreign girls. >> but it's a million dollar industry. >> my daughter has been kidnapped. >> that preys on american girls.
11:01 pm
>> in is the police. open the door so we don't have to use the key. >> dirty little secrets about girls forced to sell their bodies in order to survive. >> i think i found one of your missing girls out of redwood city. >> msnbc undercover investigates sex slaves in the suburbs. 80s a story that agains in small town usa with the girl next door. >> i always figured nothing like that could ever happen to me because i was safe, i was always careful. >> at 16, shawn heard the stories of the women being tricked into slavery.
11:02 pm
>> in that position, in that predicament like girls who were -- just took life for granted and i wasn't that kind of person, you know? i never showed my body off ever. >> but this florida teenager's life took a terrifying turn when she was trafficked by the most unlikely criminal, a fellow 16-year-old girl. >> i was such a trusting teenager. i thought everybody liked me and everybody want ed to be my fried and nobody would hurt had me. >> 200,000 to 300,000 of our children are at risk of it every single year. our children do not face this. >> brad dennis runs rescue and recovery for class kids, the national organization dedicated to saving missing children. he says shawna's case illustrates the alarming growth of the disappearance of american kids. an establishmented 300,000 who are forced into prostitution in the u.s. each year. >> it's happening in had every major town, every little
11:03 pm
suburban area, every rural area, it's happening all over the united states. >> it happened when shawna began an innocent friendship with a new girl junior year in high school. >> [ bleep ] is a girl i went to school with. i met her through classes and she was a really good trend. >> shawna says that girl, a 16-year-old we'll call cathy worked hard to gain shawna's trust and within months, a deep friendship was born. we would always talk in class and i would tell her, yeah, my mom and i are arguing again, of course. >> it was my instinct to keep shawna away from her. i first met her at the school when i picked shawna up. she came up to the car and shawna got in the car and i told shawna just to stay away from her. >> i was like, well, my parents aren't controlling. you can come over to my house and we can do whatever we want to do.
11:04 pm
if we want to go out and drink, we can go out and drink. >> he would give us a hundred dollars, drop us off at the mall and say have fun. my mom was strict. she was really strict. it wasn't just like, i met this girl at school, let me go and hang out with her. we had to go to the house and hang out at the house for quite a while before i was allowed to go out with her. >> she spent weeks lobbying to spend the night at her house. >> lisa returned from work in an immaculate house. i said, shawna, what do you want? i said okay. she said before you say no, just lisp to me. i said okay. and she said she wants to spend the weekend. i said i'm not going to discuss
11:05 pm
that now. >> later that night, cathy and her dad came over to the house to meet shawna and shawna's grandmother. >> the girls are going to go and clean condos. i'll make sure she calls you and shawna is begging me and begging me and begging me, so i finally gave this. >> cath injury's dad took them to a house not far from where shawna lives. >> he took us to this house and probably 20 or 30 minutes after we were there, i asked for some water because i was thirsty and i drank the water and i blacked out. >> swh shawna woke up, she couldn't move. >> my legs were being held down. i know i was completely naked. i kept screaming, stop, please don't do this, leave me alone.
11:06 pm
but i was so weak, i couldn't fight him off. i was still really out of it. i blacked out a few times and i kept coming back to. i was still being raped every time i woke up. >> my cell phone rang and the only thing i heard was a whole bunch of static, like she was far away. all i heard was mommy, help me and the phone went dead and i freaked. >> shawna says even though she was weakened by whatever drugs her captors forced on her, she tried to struggle. >> eventually win stopped fighting it because i knew if i fought it, i wouldn't live, i would die. i was piss him off somehow and i would end up like all the other girls that i've always heard of dying because they fought it. so i just laid there. >> for three days, shawna was raped by multiple men who paid to have sex with her. some of the men beat her, others bit her and forced her to performance oral sex.
11:07 pm
>> i remember one i woke up and when i woke up, i started screaming because i couldn't see anything and i was being held down and the guy put a gun to my head and said if i didn't stop screaming, i was going to see my brains all over that white wall. and at that point, i really, really thought i was going to die. >> i couldn't sleep, i couldn't eat. all i could imagine -- i wasn't going to hear the last thing out of shawna's mouth was mommy, help me. i refused that. >> while her frantic family called police, a beating and bleedinging shawna could see her so-called friend walking back and forth through the hallway. >> i was so exhausted and i was so scared that i finally -- i think i finally just gave up. i think i finally said, well, this is where i'm going to die. and i remember just praying and saying, if i die here, just at least, please, please tell my family that, you know, i love them and i'm story i disobeyed
11:08 pm
11:11 pm
for three days men held 16-year-old shauna captive in this house on what looked like to be a quiet street in subur n suburban, florida. >> there was, like, curtains all over the windows so it was really dark in there. there were no tvs, no dressers, no nothing. just a bed. that was all that was in the bedroom was just a bed. >> what neighboring residents didn't know is hour after hour behind darkened windows, men were paying cash to forcibly rape a high school junior who had been kidnapped and drugged. >> when i woke up i was pretty much just laying there completely naked, no blankets, no pillows, no clothes and i was bleeding really bad from where they had raped me. >> shauna says she lost count of the number of men but what became clear is her high school classmate cathy was no friend and that shauna had been lured to the house to make money for the man kathy claimed was her father.
11:12 pm
after receiving a frantic phone call from her daughter, shauna's mother lisa called police. she says they told her not to worry and tried to convince her shauna had run away. >> he's like, "oh, there's nothing i can do, you know teenagers." i was like," no, you don't understand, i know my children, something's wrong." >> i kind of knew something as a fatherly feeling i guess you would say in my stomach, pit of my stomach, that something was wrong. i knew it was wrong so i had to go out and do the best that i could as a father. >> police dispatch told the family they couldn't conduct an official missing persons search until 72 hours passed. but after hearing the story about cathy and mysterious dad lisa said the responding officer gave them a clue that made the difference between life and death for shauna. >> he told my husband, he said -- and i thank him to this day for it -- he said, "i've got
11:13 pm
a number. and what you do with this number is your business. i've got to go to the radio and call this in." real quick like my husband copied it. >> even though it was nearly midnight, shauna's family mobilized their own search by following that phone number which led them to an abandoned construction site. >> there's nobody there. so my husband hangs up and he calls the man back, "where do you live?" the man gives us a different address. my husband keeps him on the phone to make sure he ain't lying to us. we pull up and it's an old man. he is probably like 80 years old. my husband gets out and said do you know shauna and [ bleep ]. he's like, "yeah she's my granddaughter." >> at midnight she get an address from kathy's grandfather and race to a strange house where shauna's stepdad thinks he sees her in an upstairs window. >> they open the door with a chain on. he said, do you know shauna? yeah. get out of here.
11:14 pm
i don't want no trouble from her. my husband said, guess what? now you got it, buddy. he busted the door down. sean na, come down! it looked just like shauna. the girl come down and it wasn't shauna. it was a girl on crutches. but shauna had been there. at fist he didn't want to tell us that until my husband got violent with him. the girl started screaming, "just tell him, just tell him." >> under threat of violence the man admitted he had seen shauna but refused to say any more. while they searched on foot, her older brother alerted friends who worked for the local county search and rescue team. that call reached brad dennis of klaas kids. >> the best thing you can do is begin talking to the family and talking with them about it all and call her friends and try to find out who this young girl is and what is she really all about. >> while friends and family searched the area, brad dennis pressured police to run background checks on shauna's
11:15 pm
friend cathy and made a frightening discovery. the new girl who had befriended shauna had served time for prostitution in texas. >> we finally got a name which turned out not to be this girl's father, at all. so they began making some phone calls and at that point things started changing very rapidly. >> it's day three, and shauna's family grows increasingly anxious about whether or not they will see their daughter alive. by now, 22 volunteers hit the streets in search of the missing 16-year-old. shauna's brother, austin, who was 15 at the time, remembers. >> we started at the burger king right before you get to the bridge. we spanned out from there. we took the entire highway up and down posting flyers. >> we slept in groups taking flyers all over the beach. >> we had nine or ten cars packed with people, four or five
11:16 pm
trucks. >> brad dennis knows time is crucial, and that with each passing day, chances of recovering shauna diminish. dennis makes one last call threatening cathy and the man posing as cathy's father. he tells them the fbi and the national media will pursue them nonstop until they find shauna. >> oh, by the way, we are going to be located here conducting searches and if shauna just happens to show up, that's a wonderful thing. >> the volunteer search team stops at a local tom thumb to get soda. shauna's brother austin sees a car pull up in the parking lot of the store. >> i look out and see her in the car. i ran out there. >> i was just getting back in the car from hanging up fliers on a telephone pole, and the phone rings and my husband turns pale white. >> the back seat was down and she was sitting on the backseat. i looked in and went to open the door and it was locked. i reached around and opened the back door up and i was pulling her. >> he was like, "they found shauna." >> i went to pull her out. the dude said she ain't going nowhere. i pulled out my knife and said
11:17 pm
it's his life or hers. he told her to get out. she took off running. >> she looked totally wasted. i mean, i don't know -- like she wasn't even in the world. >> when i looked at her i was freaked because at first i didn't know it was shauna. because it didn't look like shauna. >> she was really crazy like almost even satan was in her. >> her hair was, like a madwoman, her hair was sticking up. she was pale as a ghost, he eyes were black and blue, her mouth was bloody, her nose was bloody, her body had hand prints all over it, her shirt was ripped. she had bite marks all over her breasts. she had shorts on. she was bleeding down her legs. >> surrounded by police, medical professionals and her family, a severely beaten and incoherent shauna didn't even recognize her own mother. even though she was free of her captors a new fight for survival had just begun.
11:18 pm
>> it looked like she was gone. she was beat up severely. they had beaten her. i later found out that they raped her severely several times, five or six guys. they drugged her up and where she was fighting them they was beating her and beating her and beating her. >> i was pretty much treated like a slave. you know? i was only there for their pleasure and for their satisfaction, not mine. they weren't worried about if i lived or died. they were worried about satisfying themselves. when the lady tried to pump my stomach, when i got to the hospital, nothing at all came out of my stomach. not even water. they had to pump two full bags of water into my stomach to pump the drugs out.
11:21 pm
after being lured to a sleepover by a new friend at school and her fake father, shauna endured three days of being drugged, raped and tortured and according to rescuers -- >> shauna had been sold on the internet for $300,000. >> in a twist of fate the volunteer search party looking for the 16-year-old rescued her
11:22 pm
when her captors stopped for gas trying to flee the state. >> they told me they lost her two or three times in life flight. >> lisa says paramedics who evacuated shauna struggled to keep her alive. she said the lethal level of drugs in her daughter's system caused cardiac arrest twice. >> they had to hog-tie her to get her to hold still. she is bloody and beat up. her hair is all wild. it don't even look like shauna. they're having to hold her because she's freaking out. >> when the lady tried to pump my stomach, when i got to the hospital, nothing came out of my stomach. nothing at all. not even water. they had to pump two full bags of water into my stomach to pump the drugs out. >> according to hospital records, a lethal combination of cocaine, meth, ecstasy and ghb, the rape drug, were pumped out of the 16-year-old's system. shauna's mother, a registered nurse, thought the worst was
11:23 pm
over. but the family was shocked by the treatment they received by caregivers. >> when i first got to the hospital i was mean to everybody. i didn't understand they were trying to help me. i was still in shock from everything that had happened and i was cussing and screaming at anybody that tried to come close to me, i was swinging at them. >> brad dennis of klaas kids who helped to rescue shauna said the staff misread the situation. >> what i saw was a very scared, terrorized girl. that's what i saw. someone that had immediately put up her defenses because here's a situation that maybe she had a little bit of control over. >> it was just a nightmare. the hospital got angry because shauna wouldn't let them do a rape kit at first. she would have if they would have let me in the room or my mom in the room. for christ sake the girl didn't realize she was safe. she thought she was still with these people. i kept telling them, if you'll at least let me or my mother sit in the room she'll let you.
11:24 pm
"she's just being uncooperative so we're leaving." and that's exactly what they done. >> finally shauna's grandmother was allowed access to the traumatized girl but shauna was to terrified to tell officials anything. >> she begged shauna, "please, tell grandma, you've got to talk to grandma." >> no, grandma, they'll kill you, they'll kill all of us, no, grandma, no." she refused to talk for about three hours. >> the hospital sometimes treated shauna more like a drug addict than a rape victim and so did the police, they say. >> "well, we'll investigate this but she's going to have to be in the room alone, her parents can't be there." and brad said, "that's fine, what about a rape counselor?" "nope. we're interviewing her alone or we're not interviewing her at all." well, you know what? after everything she'd been through, i wouldn't let nobody interview her unless i was there, or my husband was there, or brad was there. >> reporter: shauna's medical
11:25 pm
records outlined the resulting wound and infection the 16-year-old suffered after three days of sexual abuse. >> we found out that she had gonorrhea in her throat. she had chlamydia and was severely, severely, severely torn and ripped down below. that's when they found out they used different things on her. >> the hospital declined to comment due to federal privacy laws. >> they expected me to be alone with a male investigator in an interrogation room. i couldn't do that. i couldn't even be alone with my dad. they should understand that. if i can't be alone with my dad or my brothers, what makes you think i can be alone with a man i've never met in my whole life? >> in the two years since the abduction no one has been arrested or prosecuted for the kidnapping, gang rape and torture of shauna newell. the sheriff's department declined msnbc's request for comment but said that shauna and her family had been uncooperative in the investigation. they added, if they're now willing to cooperate they will
11:26 pm
reopen the case. >> all shauna's family wanted in the six days she was missing was to bring her home. that's all they wanted. >> marc klaas runs klaas kids, an organization dedicated to recovering abducted children. he says local police find the notion of american girls being sold into slavery just not credible. all too often, kidnapped girls are classified as runaways, which enrages helpless families. >> they didn't want to make friends with the cops. they didn't want to create enemies with the cops. they wanted their little girl to be back at her home with her family. you've got the family that's anxious, petra guide. you've got the little girl that's being victimized. and when all is said and done, what does law enforcement do? they point the finger at the family and say, well, they weren't cooperative. oh, my goodness. they are the victims, aren't they? therefore let's treat them a little more kindly. >> i was thinking the whole time, she's right. if i would have listened to her
11:27 pm
i wouldn't be here right now. i would be at home. i would be at home with my brothers and i missed them so much. i missed all my brothers so much. >> today under the watchful guard of her family, shauna warns other girls how easy it is to be kidnapped and trafficked, her mission -- to save other girls from a similar fate. >> to this day, i'm still scared to go out. i went to the beach a few weeks ago, and i saw the dude who raped me. and he just looked at me like, hey. you know, like -- you mother [ bleep ]. you ruined my whole life. you have scarred me for the rest of my life and you're just sitting there going on with your life like nothing is wrong. you know? you work day-to-day, you go do what you want to do without worrying about anybody coming up behind you and slitting your throat. >> shauna says sharing her story serves as a caution to other young girls.
11:28 pm
11:31 pm
here is what's happening. the dow plunged more than 600 points. its eighth largest point loss after the day after britain stunned the world by voting to leave the eu. the nasdaq tumbled roughly 200 points. at least 23 people are dead and thousands without power in west virginia as massive floods sweep across that state. parts of west virginia receive roughly 9 inches of rainfall and a state of emergency was declared in 44 counties.. and wildfires continue to rage across california. two people are dead and at least 100 structures are destroyed. that fire currently estimated at 30,000 acres. now, back to our program.
11:32 pm
here's what's happening. the israeli military continues its air assault on hamas targets in gaza entering the third day. the number of rockets fired into israel fell from more than 130 saturday, to 20 on sunday. u.s. military video out of not every child that's designated as a runaway is a runaway child. >> marc klaas, whose organization helps track down missing girls, says that local police often dismiss teenage girls that disappear as troublemakers. >> if you have situations where the parents are reporting the kids missing, and the police are excusing it or justifying it in any way, shape or form, of course you're going to have an irate family. >> marc klaas speaks from firsthand experience. in 1993, his 12-year-old daughter was kidnapped from her own bedroom during a sleepover. >> my daughter polly was kidnapped by a vicious, brutal, long-time criminal was thought to have run away for a long period of time. it offers a very easy justification for law enforcement not to get involved in these cases. when you look at the number of cases you can kind of understand that it would really overwhelm them. >> despite launching a two-month search to find his daughter, klaas experienced the same frustrations about law enforcement's reaction to the
11:33 pm
abduction. >> they developed a profile of polly's case and suggested she had run away with her boyfriend to avoid having to move. not only were they convinced of this but they browbeat the two girls that were with polly for a couple of weeks until they were able to be convinced otherwise. >> for three years bruce johnson has struggled daily with the trauma of dealing with the police department he says failed his family. >> it's across the street now. there's a guy beating up a man on the grass. >> this is the 911 tape from the witness on the night of may 23rd, 2005, when bruce went to rescue his eighth grade daughter from the house where she had been kidnapped and prostituted for ten days by a vicious pimp named derek willowby. >> the guy's sitting on him and the other people are beating him. >> okay. >> they're hitting him with a rock and a tire iron right now.
11:34 pm
>> the man being beaten is bruce just moments after he freed his daughter. bruce who still struggles from the aftereffects of the severe beating remains outraged. >> the police aren't trained to believe that forced prostitution of kids happens here. >> for ten days after his daughter laura and her cousin were abducted while walking to their neighborhood wendy's, bruce said the toledo police did nothing. >> they believe it's just a runaway, just a runaway, just a runaway. >> in fact, the eighth and ninth graders had been kidnapped by a notorious ohio pimp and two women who beat and sexually abused them. this attorney prosecuted the case. >> they were told they were going to have to call willoughby daddy, that they were going to be required to engage in sex acts for money. and then the two adult females schooled the minors on what they could expect.
11:35 pm
>> it wasn't no cult. it wasn't no i'll buy you this sweater. this guy was just plain, he got them in the house. boom. boom. period. >> on day ten of their captivity willoughby had the two girls and female accomplices driven to the michigan truck stop. while the teenagers were forced to have sex with the truckers, willowby's accomplices collected the cash. an alert state trooper arrested the two cohorts and one of the kidnapped girls for prostitution. >> the other two leave, she breaks down and tells us that this whole story about how she was abducted in toledo, ohio. she had another friend with her. she is 15. the other girl was 14. they were abducted and turned into prostitution with a pimp. >> they were able to very quickly determine that she also had a cousin who had been at that truck stop earlier but who was still being held by willoughby. >> the michigan sheriff notified toledo police and bruce's
11:36 pm
family. he and his sister, the girl's mother, rushed across state lines to pick her up. >> i could just imagine what was going on with my daughter. i didn't know if she was being beaten, raped, killed. if she was still alive. i didn't know that. >> once bruce and his sister arrived at downing street his niece pointed out the house and he dialed 911. >> they waited 30 minutes but the police did not come. his sister, sandy, called again. >> i heard the 911 operator say it was a low-priority call. they say a kidnapping is a low-priority call. the toledo police. >> fed up, bruce entered the
11:37 pm
house with a tire jack to confront willoughby, was quickly overwhelmed by two companions. bruce's sister sandy called 911 again. >> the fight made its way on to the lawn. at which point concerned neighbors began to call. >> with no help in sight 20 minutes later the same neighbor called a second time. >> toledo 911. >> i'm calling again. these people are beating this man. there's a rock and his head is
11:38 pm
bleeding and no police are here yet. >> they are driving there. >> during the melee, bruce's daughter was pushed out of the second story window. she ran to help her father. >> i hear, get off my dad, get off my dad. that was my daughter. i knew my daughter was safe. you know? i just gave up fighting. >> as his daughter ran to find help a second neighbor called 911. >> police finally arrived and broke up the fight. bruce was being treated for severe concussion. he learns that toledo police charged him with breaking and entering the kidnapper's home. those charges were eventually thrown out. toledo police have declined our
11:39 pm
11:43 pm
of the oakland police department it's just another thursday night. >> the mission is to rescue any underage prostitute from being exploited and identify and arrest the pimp. >> the objective is to try to focus in on young girls that are being displayed or advertised on various internet sites such as myspace, craigslist, redbook. >> what these officers find routine is considered progressive by law enforcement standards. >> we take it very seriously. we've been working with the fbi for years. the exploitation of girls underage on the internet is also a federal offense. >> with help from a federal human trafficking grant the oakland pd and the fbi regularly conduct sting operations. >> again, the mission is to rescue any underage prostitute from being exploited and identify and arrest their pimp. an officer will make a deal for a sexual act in exchange for currency. targeted individuals will be taken into custody. >> their objective, to rescue young girls in trouble. a male officer plays the human decoy. he will call young girls from online ads and ask them to meet him at this hotel. >> there are certain girls we
11:44 pm
have focused in on. we've gone ahead and we printed out their play name or stage name so to speak. where they can be reached at. we will start calling those individuals and attempting to lure them into the hotel room. >> veteran investigator jim says undercover opportunities like this one give law enforcement the rare opportunity to pull girls off the streets and actually arrest the pimp who is holding them captive. >> the craigslist girls the pimps will drive them to the location and wait for them. so generally, if we can make the deal, we can get the girl, get her off the streets, get her some help, and have the pimp right there, which is very unusual. >> officer saleda wants the public to understand these are slaves. >> they have to do degrading things. they get raped, robbed and murdered. everything they get goes to the
11:45 pm
leeches, the pimps. >> tonight's operation takes place in one of oakland's most popular tourist spots. while unsuspecting families enjoy their ocean view, criminals harboring juveniles set up shop. what makes this particular area attractive to pimps? it's just a short five-minute drive from the busiest intersection of oakland, where everyday johns know they can buy a young girl. investigators say the explosion of the internet and sites like these make buying a child as easy as ordering a pizza. men can order up the hair color, age and ethnicity of their choice. that keeps the oakland pd child exploitation unit hopping. >> our office is constantly ringing from san francisco up to oregon to other states. we get a lot of girls from all over the place. how it works is oakland is part of the circuit. the circuit runs nationwide, oakland, san francisco, santa barbara, l.a., phoenix, atlanta, up to washington, d.c., minnesota, seattle, back down to san francisco and oakland. the pimps bring them all the way around.
11:46 pm
>> he says more often than not the girls have been so brutalized they are brainwashed into protecting their abuser. >> every girl we stop will tell us she's an independent or, you know, something like that. she doesn't have a pimp. it's drilled into them to say it. that's why it's hard to put a case on these guys. they're protective of their pimps. but they don't keep a dime. >> with millions of dollars at stake officers say more violent criminals are turning to the trafficking game. >> the drug dealers in the past were selling dope and now switched to this because it is harder to get caught. it's a renewable source. they don't have to buy the product. the product is already there. they are low maintenance. they don't spend a lot of on the girls. it is money rolling over. >> you catch a guy with the drug. the guy sells it to the undercover cop. when the undercover cop's picking up a young girl on the street, he's picking up the girl. she's the one taking the risk and he collects the profit. we stopped one guy and we got i think $20,000 out of his sock.
11:47 pm
>> the task force warns parents as the business becomes more and more lucrative, the tactics pimps use to lure or kidnap girls gets bolder and more creative. >> they'll go to bus stations, malls. >> movie theaters. we have cases where people in school will do recruiting and get her friends to come out. >> tonight's operation is designed to bust pimps who run a takeout service by delivering young girls from door to door. investigators wire the decoy's room, monitor the decoy's activities and communicate with him at all times. armed officers stand by in the adjoining room while undercover squad cars surveil the area. tonight, officer jim beers plays the client in need of a young companion while his fellow officer mark is technical backup.
11:48 pm
>> i'll make the call. mark here will basically scribe. take the notes and times and all that stuff. >> together with fbi agent parker they cull through the ads they found on craigslist. >> and what i've done is i've attached them so we know who this girl is. >> okay. >> investigators say when you see an ad with a blurred face, that is usually a dead give-away the girl is underage. >> these guys have learned the feds will get them for production and consideration distribution of kiddie porn by placing them on craigslist, 15 years minimum. >> they explain how they choose the juveniles they will be contacting tonight. >> i think i found one here. a missing girl out of redwood city here. this is the ad that i found. >> you think that's her. >> it is a good possibility it is her. >> throughout the night, agent parker cruises craigslist and points out other possible girls the officers can invite to the room. >> at first you may not see them as children because of the way
11:49 pm
they're presented and dressed and all the makeup. if you take a look at them you can see the innocence and see the fact they are children. there is a high market for them because a lot of these guys think these underage girls are cleaner, prettier. they are sought out after by the johns. >> outside a sudden burst of communication as the officer spots what he thinks is a pimp with underage girls right in front of their room. >> there's three of them, actually. they look young and are standing in front of your door, mark. >> unless you have got something to arrest him or stop him for let's ignore him and focus on the task at hand. >> for the moment, officers choose to hang back and monitor the situation. detective beers starts making calls to the juveniles they've targeted. >> hello. hi. i'm just looking for some company tonight. okay, cool. >> where are you? >> i'm at motel 6 on
11:50 pm
embarcadaro. >> is jasmine there? hi, jasmine. my name's mark. i was wondering if i could have some company for tonight? all righty. i'll be waiting. >> with two possible girls coming to take the bait there is nothing left for the human decoy to do but wait. >> police, open the door. so we don't have to use the key. it's 7:00 p.m. at a popular
11:53 pm
it's 7:00 p.m. at a popular tourist area of oakland. while unsuspecting tourists take in the sights and sounds of san francisco bay, undercover officers position themselves around this hotel waiting for the pimps who control and sell underage girls to deliver them to a man they think will pay for sex. they don't know the john is an undercover officer for oakland's child exploitation unit and that
11:54 pm
the fbi and a dozen officers are waiting to rescue the girl and arrest the pimp. the decoy, officer beers, says in the last two weeks they've rescued a 12-year-old and twin 13-year-old girls. >> 11 years ago when i first started you might periodically come across underage prostitutes on the track or doing one of these things. but in the past five, six years it's gotten so much worse with the, you know, craigslist and eros.com and everyone having access to computers. >> it is so lucrative everyone and their brother wants to be a pimp these days. >> the officer warns that the business of buying and selling young girls online is booming and that criminals will use any means necessary to acquire fresh stock. >> a pretty young girl can turn, lowball, five tricks a night, $100 a trick, that's $500. if the guy has three girls, $1,500 tax-free, seven days a week. >> back in room 125, officer mark cautioned the undercover
11:55 pm
officers outside to be on alert. >> i just found out they made a few calls. >> it looks like a very young hispanic female. she is going to call back in 20 minutes. just be aware of it. >> the officers await for the juvenile to arrive they notice a suspicious man with three underage girls checking into a room just above the sting room. he leaves with two of the girls in the car. >> a lexus with chrome rims just passed by me. >> he's probably on the track to check them. >> officer saleda is sure he is a pimp and he's just transported two girls to a strip advertised online as a hot spot for young prostitutes. and it's just blocks from the hotel. minutes later, officers notice the young girl they left behind is pregnant. >> there's a female pregnant, a female black pregnant, she has turquoise suit on. >> sergeant hogenmiller say they stopped the man and two young women down the street. the man is on probation and one of the girls is just 16. he tells the team to abandon
11:56 pm
their undercover operation and move in on the other juvenile. >> police, open the door. so we don't have to use the key. >> it appears they were running an operation out of the hotel room on the balcony. >> can you step away from that? >> what were you doing online here? >> on craigslist, you don't talk to friends. we're not stupid. >> you're logging on to your craigslist account? what were you doing on craigslist? >> if we did a search on that computer right now would i find craigslist postings for erotic services? tell me the truth. i would, right? >> there's two tickets from the police department. loitering with intent to prostitute. >> in here the 17-year-old female is pregnant. the room smells like marijuana. very strongly of marijuana. she had her laptop computer out with craigslist up. so in a nutshell, like i was a pimp, he had three girls with them, he dropped them off in this room to work out of. that's where we're at right now.
11:57 pm
>> the teenage girl tells the officers she just met jay reese, the man they suspect is her pimp. >> is he in your phone? >> is he in my phone? he's not in my phone. >> who's daddy? >> we call, that that's your real dad? call it. can you call it? >> in every girl's phone it would be daddy. it's not their real father. that's what they call the pimps. >> if anybody hears a phone ring, let me know. >> i press that button, the pimp's phone started to ring. in the car he was stopped at. >> hey, who's this. hey, officer, how are you? >> it's listed as daddy on the phone. you've got to take the phone as evidence. okay? all right. [ bleep ]. now do you want to go to jail? i'm trying to cut you a break. you're lying to me. daddy is not your real dad. it's the pimp we stopped in the car over there. jay reese. >> you are 17 and pregnant. you don't need to go to jail. >> you need to talk to us,
11:58 pm
sweetie. we can help you. do you want a few minutes to think? we'll give you two or three minutes to think about it. you think about the baby. think about this fool. do you think he would go to jail for you? not in a second. >> saleda, can you come down for a minute. >> coming, sarge. >> go up and see what you can get -- >> she's ready to break. >> if nothing else, we're going 272 or 273 at the least. >> the 17-year-old breaks down and tells officers the truth. she's been turning tricks for no pay for two years, and she wants out. >> we're going to take care of you, okay? how does it work? >> well, it worked as i give him the best dates. they put the money under the bed and they give it to him. >> do you guys get to keep any of the money? >> no.
11:59 pm
>> no. >> are there any ads on craigslist for you? >> i'm not going to lie. yes, there are. >> what name? >> under precious or jessica. >> when officers busted precious jessica she was just setting up dates at the motel for the night. >> looks like our operation is going to be shut down. we're going to be dealing with two juvenile prostitutes and a couple of adult prostitutes and a couple of pimps. before we could do our own operation, it fell in our laps. >> while the other officers wrap the first operation, saleda is asked to delete the pimp she calls daddy off her phone. >> before i give it back to you? oh, yeah. hi, ma'am. this is the oakland police department. >> he calls her family. >> there's a young lady here. we're going to have an officer take you to your mom's house. okay? what we did set out to do was entice some -- a pimp to bring the girl here. what eventually happened is it appears the pimp was already here with the girls.
12:00 am
so it worked out all the better. we never go home empty-handed, > > they are young women and girl who is imagined america as a place of endless opportunity. >> people being held against their will and raped in essence a dozen-plus times a day. >> but it meant living trapped in a cycle of abuse and exploitation. >> approximately 100 women were recovered. >> incredibly, many of these trafficked girls
77 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
MSNBC WestUploaded by TV Archive on
