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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Mexican Women Set to Testify Against Alleged Sex Traffickers in New York Trial Mexican Women Set to Testify Against Alleged Sex Traffickers in New York Trial By Tom Hays Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - The poor, uneducated teenager met Josue Flores Carreto at a pastry shop where she worked in central Mexico and, amid promises of a better life, they wed in 2001. What followed, federal prosecutors say, were beatings, threats and sex with strangers far from home. The young woman's story, which Carreto disputes, is crucial to a federal case alleging he and a gang of fellow predators forced Mexican women like his bride into prostitution. Authorities say some of the victims were smuggled into New York in a scheme that made the gang hundreds of thousands of dollars while leaving the women penniless. Carreto, 37, brother Gerardo Flores Carreto, 33, and Daniel Perez Alonso, 25, all Mexican nationals, were arrested last year after immigration agents targeted the ring's U.S. outpost - two dingy apartments in Queens. The men, who pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking charges, are to go on trial Monday in federal court. Others were arrested in Mexico - including the Carreto brothers' mother, an alleged organizer of the ring - on charges they forced an unknown number of women to become prostitutes. U.S. authorities say it's the first international case to reach trial under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which was intended to abolish involuntary servitude. If convicted, the men face could face life sentences. Prosecutors plan to put some of the alleged victims on the witness stand to dramatize allegations that the defendants "kidnapped, raped and beat women to gain control of them." The defense will try to convince the jury that the women stole into the United States and sold their bodies by choice. When they were picked up on immigration violations, they concocted tales of coercion in a bid to win residency, said Telesforo Del Valle Jr., the attorney for Josue Flores Carreto. Carreto knew his wife made a living as a prostitute, but "it was her idea," Del Valle said. "She did it in Mexico and she decided to do it here as well. ... There was no abuse." According to U.S. prosecutors, the family began recruiting desperate girls and women in poor neighborhoods in the states of Tlaxcala and Puebla in 1991. Resistance was met with violence, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel R. Alonso, who is no relation to defendant Alonso. Of the nine victims cited in a federal indictment, three were forced to have abortions, he added. In New York, the prostitutes were farmed out to low-end brothels serving poor immigrants who typically paid about $30 for sex, authorities said. Half of the money allegedly went to the house and half to the ring, which would send funds back to Mexico. Securing the border would help end this. That's why Bush will not tolerate attempts to stop the flow of illegals.
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