Four members of a Queens-based family-run prostitution ring were convicted of sex trafficking young Mexican girls in Brooklyn federal court.
Photos courtesy of EDNY
Four Queens residents who are members of the same family were convicted of sex trafficking and other crimes on Oct. 19 following a four-week-long trial in Brooklyn federal court.
Luz Elvira Cardona, 35; Roberto Cesar Cid Dominguez, 60; Blanca Hernandez Morales, 53; and Jose Facundo Zarate Morales, 34, were found guilty by a federal jury for their roles in a major sex trafficking ring that smuggled minors from Mexico for prostitution in the New York area. The four defendants were members of their family-run Cid-Hernandez Sex Trafficking Organization were found guilty on all counts of transportation of minors, sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act extortion, promotion of prostitution, use of interstate facilities to commit bribery and related conspiracy counts.
As proven at trial, since approximately 2002, the defendants — all of whom are related by blood or common-law marriage — used force, threats of force, fraud and coercion to cause young women and minor girls from Mexico to engage in prostitution in the United States. Members of the organization pressured the victims, including two minor victims, to travel to the United States with false promises of employment and a better life. When the young girls arrived in New York, they were forced by the defendants to work in prostitution.
During the trial, a victim testified that she was 15 years old and living in Mexico in 2007 when Cardona, her aunt, offered to pay travel expenses to New York City, where the teen could work as a cleaner. The victim did not know that Cardona, along with her partner Zarate Morales, his mother Hernandez Morales, and her partner Cid Dominguez, were operating a prostitution business. After the victim arrived in Queens, Cardona and Zarate Morales brokered a deal with a client to sell her virginity and thereafter,…
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