Latest Legal News from the Criminal Courts in Houston, Texas

June 8, 2007

MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS ARRESTED IN HUMAN TRAFFICKING CASE

San Antonio - United States Attorney Johnny Sutton announced today that Isabel Consuelo Ochoa and her daughters Consuelo Pilar Ochoa and Maria de Jesus Ochoa were detained without bond this morning by United States Magistrate Judge John Primomo. The detention follows their arrest earlier this week on charges of violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 1591(a) known as Sex Trafficking of Children or by Force, Fraud, or Coercion.

Based on the ongoing investigation and the victims’ statements it is believed that the defendants traveled to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to recruit young girls to work in the San Antonio area as prostitutes. Upon arriving in Mexico they enticed the young girls to return with them to the United States claiming they would work as escorts but would not be required to have sex with men. Of the three known victims the Ochoa women recruited, two were illegal immigrants who the defendants paid smugglers to illegally cross into the United States and one victim had border crossing documents. The victims in this care are 15, 17, and 22 years-old.

After the young women were in the United States they were told they would have to work for five years to “work off” the money the defendants had spent brining them across the border and for other expenses they incurred in getting the young women ready to be prostitutes. The victims told law enforcement agents that they were scared to leave because a male associate of the Ochoas had threatened them with a gun and indicated he could find them and their families back in Mexico and would have them killed.

This is an ongoing investigation of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is being prosecuted for the government by Assistants United States Attorney Bill Baumann and Charles Jenkins.

A criminal complaint is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. Defendants are presumed innocent unless and until convicted.

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