Spreading awareness
Human Trafficking In America
This Community page is intended to share the stories of those who have gone through human trafficking. I want my audience of Chico to realize that it is happening beneath our noses and that it to occur here. It is also meant to hear other stories and comments so feel free to send in your story to share with the world. Your story can be anonymous but it can help someone who might be going through the same situation. The stories are here to help people spread awareness.
Survivor Stories
OUR STORIES
Stacy Lundgren
Chico / Sacramento
TELL US YOUR STORY:
My name is Stacy Lundgren, and I survived child sex trafficking in America.
I was born in Chico, California to a Christian family who loved me very much. My dad, however, was an alcoholic. I loved him, but the disease consumed him. When I was three years old, my parents divorced. This was very hard for me because it meant my dad wasn't around as much. When I began elementary school, I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and dyslexia. I was tormented in school by bullies to the point that I attempted suicide in junior high. Bullying and the fear of being bullied is a risk factor for many things, including suicide and a vulnerability to sexual exploitation. My dad was in and out of jail, my mom returned to school, and I had no friends. That's when I turned to Internet chat rooms for friendship. I then met a man who befriended and convinced me to meet him offline.
Sex traffickers are smart. This man showered a lonely fourteen-year-old girl with love and attention. I felt special to have a 22-year-old guy interested in me. I started a secret relationship with him. I started to live two different lives. Everyone thought I was this good Christian girl, but nobody knew about my double life. He would pick me up from school and drive me around; I thought we were dating. This continued for about a year. In 2001, we started sleeping together. I loved him and I thought he loved me. Despite dating a few boys in my "normal" life, I really only wanted to be with him. My mom remarried, and we moved from Chico to Sacramento. And then things got worse.
He started having me meet other men off the Internet. I remember the very first guy ─ I met him at midnight, and my heart was pounding. I didn't know what to expect. So many things were going through my head. I heard a voice telling me to go back. I didn't know it then, but I know now it was God trying to warn me that things were going to get worse. This man never forced me to meet other men, but he knew the right words to say. He would tell me I was beautiful, that I was just having fun...but it was never fun for me. I was constantly scared I might get pregnant while living this second life. On the outside, I looked like an ordinary girl; but on the inside, I was drowning. I didn't think I could tell anyone, and I was afraid of losing him. I formed a love attachment to him. Whenever I saw other men, he had me call afterward so that he knew I was OK. I thought this meant he cared about me.
By my late teens, I was seeing two to three guys a week as he collected the profit. He and I were supposed to meet for my eighteenth birthday, but that day never happened. Unbeknownst to me, the FBI had been using a wiretap to track my trafficker's every move. His case was the first in the United States in which this technology was used to track and convict a trafficker. The FBI had learned that he intended to sell me to another man who sought to purchase a child sex slave, and the FBI intervened. I know now that God had saved my life. At this point, however, I was a mess. Everything I thought to be true was a lie. I thought this man loved me.
It has taken a long time for my recovery but I am now embracing my new life. With the help of Mercy Ministries they helped me find Christ and through Him I found my freedom. I have an amazing family who continually is there for me all the way. I am now engaged to an amazing man and we have 4 children. Every day I am continuing to heal and to move forward to what happen to me. My goal now is to share my story about what happen so this doesn't happen anymore
Click here to read more about Stacy Lundgren
Three men sentenced for roles in human trafficking ring
Three men have been sentenced for involvement in a human trafficking ring in which women from Mexico were used as prostitutes in five Northern California cities, including Sacramento, Yuba City and Chico.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced that Nery Najarro-Rodriguez, 42, Jorge Perez-Hernandez, 37, and Luis Mata, 30, pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit pimping and pandering as part of a multi-county investigation. Each was sentenced today in Sacramento Superior Court to three years in county jail.
The charges stemmed from an FBI investigation into a human trafficking network that spanned several Northern California counties. Young women, ages 21 to 30, were brought from Mexico and sold for sex to as many as 20 clients in a single day, according to an Attorney General's Office news release. The sex acts occurred in brothels in Chico, Stockton, Yuba City, Fairfield and Sacramento, officials said.
In January, the FBI served arrest and search warrants at the brothels and recovered evidence that was presented to the Attorney General's Special Crimes Unit. FBI surveillance showed that the women spent approximately one week at a particular brothel before being driven to another brothel or a bus station.
Federal prosecutors have charged three additional defendants with harboring an alien and conspiracy to harbor an alien. That case is still pending.
Special agents with the California Department of Justice obtained arrest warrants for five suspects on state conspiracy and pimping charges. Three of the five were the suspects sentenced today. A fourth suspect, Adelaida Teran-Bravo, 42, was previously convicted of felony accessory and sentenced to six months in county jail. Charges against the fifth defendant, Garrido Fuentas, 32, are pending in Butte County Superior Court.
Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2013/05/three-men-sentenced-for-roles-in-human-trafficking-ring.html#storylink=cpy
Man arrested for suspected human trafficking, kidnapping in Shasta County
Redding Police arrested a man yesterday on suspicion of kidnapping a 16-year-old Sacramento girl and forcing her into prostitution.
Melvin Derrell Baldwin-Green was arrested in Redding yesterday on charges of kidnapping, human trafficking of a minor, promoting sexual conduct by a minor, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, taking a minor for the purpose of prostitution, and child endangerment after a month long Redding Police Department investigation.
The investigation began when 16-year-old girl flagged down citizens in the 1900 block of Hartnell Avenue on Thursday April 17. The girl said she had been held against her will inside a nearby apartment and managed to escape.
The girl was able to identify a suspect and said she had been kidnapped from the Sacramento area a month before.
Investigators found that in early March of 2014, the girl was contacted by Baldwin-Green as she was walking home from a party in the Sacramento area. She said Baldwin-Green forced her into his vehicle and drove her to Redding against her will.
Redding Police also learned the victim had been reported as a runaway from the Sacramento area.
The girl told police that while in Redding she was held against her will in an apartment off Olive Street, and a second apartment off Hartnell Avenue. She said Baldwin-Green had locks on windows and doorknobs on the inside doors which required keys to open. The victim said Baldwin-Green took her phone, and threatened to harm her if she tried to escape.
The victim was forced to engage in acts of prostitution. Baldwin-Green told her if she made enough money he would buy her a bus ticket home to her family.
After interviewing the girl police obtained an arrest warrant for Baldwin-Green and search warrants for the locations on North Court Street and Hartnell Avenue.
Yesterday police found an internet escort ad they believed was placed by Baldwin-Green. Police called the number and set up an appointment with the subject who answered the phone. Police located and followed Baldwin-Green as he left a residence on the 1100 block of North Court Street and traveled to a residence in the 1900 block of Hartnell Avenue where he picked up a female subject. He then drove the female subject to the pre-arranged meeting location at a hotel on Churn Creek Road in Redding.
Baldwin-Green dropped the female subject off and was arrested by investigators around 8:00 p.m.
Baldwin-Green was booked in to the Shasta County Jail. His nail has been set at $1 million.
Shamere McKenzie and
Keisha Head story
Listen and view their stories, shared at CSU Chico State University
http://rcemedia.csuchico.edu/Mediasite/Play/810bd0c7fb8649579a874c40708a3dd01d?playFrom=454000