'Enforcer' testifies on slave ring's forced abortions
NEWARK -- A Honduran woman pleaded guilty to being an "enforcer" in a slave labor ring that smuggled girls as young as 14 into the country and used threats of violence to force them to work in North Hudson bars.
Xochil Nectalina Rosales Martinez, 29, also had been smuggled into this country and forced to work in one of the bars, but was later told she was in charge of running the Guttenberg apartment the ring used as a safehouse.
She said she was told that if "any of these bitches get out of line, you should beat them." She said she also was present when the girls and women were forced to have abortions if they became pregnant, and saw one of the women give birth to a baby that died soon after.
"I cannot stomach this behavior," U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said after the hearing in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Joel Pisano. "People who engage in this kind of conduct undermine the ideal that people can come to this country and live in freedom."
Christie said he was hopeful that Rosales Martinez's guilty plea, and the information she has given federal prosecutors, will lead to additional guilty pleas among the 10 others charged.
Rosales Martinez faces up 53 to 61 months in prison, but in exchange for her cooperation will not be charged with any additional crimes, officials said.
In court yesterday, she said the alleged ringleader, Luisa Medrano, was in charge of the three bars - El Paisano Bar and El Puerto de la Union II, both in Union City, and El Puerto de la Union I in Guttenberg - where the girls and young women were forced to entertain male customers, dancing for tips and encouraging them to buy drinks.
Rosales Martinez said the girls had to earn at least $500 a week in order to pay off their $20,000 smuggling fee.
Christie would not say if the victims engaged in sex with bar customers or if the aborted baby was conceived with a customer, saying that such information might be needed as evidence.
Christie said the smuggling ring's victims can remain in the United States under a law intended to protect victims of human trafficking.
Rosales Martinez was herself smuggled into the United States from Honduras at a cost of $15,000 with the help of a "coyote" who got her across the Mexican border.
She was then brought to Union City, where she was forced to work at the El Paisano bar, and later recruited to be the house enforcer at the Guttenberg apartment where other women smuggled by the ring were required to stay.
Rosales Martinez cried as she recalled how the women were forced to take abortion-inducing pills so they could continue working.
Despite the pills, Rosales Martinez said, a 21-year-old woman gave birth to a live baby in a toilet bowl.
"Did you hear it cry when it was pulled from the toilet?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah J. Gannett asked.
"Sí," Rosales Martinez replied, weeping.
The alleged ringleaders - Medrano and Rosales Martinez's cousins, Noris Elvira Rosales Martinez and Ana Luz Rosalez Martinez - are awaiting trial on conspiracy, alien smuggling and other charges.
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Posted by Editor at November 17, 2005 07:52 AM
