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Michigan sting uncovers child sex workers · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: What do you do if your child goes missing? Nancy
0:03
Speaker 1: Grace Here, I want to tell you about a brand
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Speaker 1: new online video series, Justice Nation Crime Stops Here. It's
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Speaker 1: a five episode series delivering action information that you can
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Speaker 1: apply in your everyday life to protect your family. Go
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Speaker 1: to Nancy Grace dot com now use promo code Nancy
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Speaker 1: for off Nancy Grace dot Com. Promo code Nancy Crime
0:36
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace and Juvenile Hall. I had given
0:41
Speaker 1: up on life. I thought I won't live. I won't
0:44
Speaker 1: live past six Team, There's no way I'm gonna make it.
0:47
Speaker 1: And I was only thirteen. I wasn't even fourteen yet,
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Speaker 1: and I couldn't see myself making it to a sixteen.
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Speaker 1: Maybe I'm in fifteen. It just wasn't even a thought
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Speaker 1: that I would well by the time when I was
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Speaker 1: trafficked at twelve, I should have been dead by night. Team.
1:00
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the statistics a seven year life expectancy,
1:04
Speaker 1: and that's what should have happened to me. But fortunately
1:07
Speaker 1: someone came into my life um and planted this seed
1:12
Speaker 1: and said you have potential. And then I started trying
1:16
Speaker 1: to figure out what that meant. This message that we
1:19
Speaker 1: can all do something needs to get out there. We
1:22
Speaker 1: have our unique abilities, talents, and we can develop them
1:26
Speaker 1: and we can change the world with them. You are
1:28
Speaker 1: hearing the voice of a child sex trafficking survivor. Wow,
1:35
Speaker 1: I Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for
1:37
Speaker 1: being with us. I can distinctly remember prosecuting a case
1:43
Speaker 1: of child molestation where the child, the girl was about
1:48
Speaker 1: twelve years old, and I went looking for her, trying
1:51
Speaker 1: to find her out on the streets of inner city Atlanta.
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Speaker 1: I found her in a brothel and I went in
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Speaker 1: the room and came out and said, she's not there,
2:03
Speaker 1: and the cops said, my undercover vice cups said go
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Speaker 1: back in. She's the one in the white boots. I
2:09
Speaker 1: went back inn. I came back and I said, no,
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Speaker 1: she's not this thirty five year old woman. It was
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Speaker 1: a then thirteen year old girl that they had made
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Speaker 1: up to look like a grown woman with a weave
2:27
Speaker 1: and high heeled boots and tons of makeup. And I
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Speaker 1: could not believe that that was the little girl whose
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Speaker 1: picture I had in my file. You were just hearing
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Speaker 1: the voice of Carissa Phelps, child six trafficking survivor, and
2:44
Speaker 1: that voice was brought to you by an incredible woman,
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Speaker 1: Melody Miller, a documentary director of California's Forgotten Children. With
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Speaker 1: Me Melody Miller, Mark classed, world known victim's advocate and
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Speaker 1: founder of Class Kids found Nation, Joseph's Got Morgan Forensics expert,
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Speaker 1: Professor Forensics Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath
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Speaker 1: My Fate. Karen Stark, veteran New York psychologist, and Kenya Johnson,
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Speaker 1: felony prosecutor to Melanie Miller, how did you meet all
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Speaker 1: these child trafficking survivors that are in California's Forgotten Children. Well,
3:24
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen years old, I started volunteering for
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Speaker 1: a nonprofit in Oakland called Missy and they rescuing rehability
3:31
Speaker 1: children who have been commercially sexually exploited, and I wanted
3:34
Speaker 1: to make a film for them after volunteering for nine
3:37
Speaker 1: years now about child's next trafficking, but through the voices
3:43
Speaker 1: of survivor leaders, and so they were able to connect
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Speaker 1: me with survivor leaders who are openly sharing their stories
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Speaker 1: and their journey in order to make a difference in
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Speaker 1: the world and also doing incredible things fighting every day
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Speaker 1: to help victims worldwide. As we hear Carissa Phelps voice
3:59
Speaker 1: this child six trafficking survivor, this with the backdrop of
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Speaker 1: in the last days, one hundred twenty three missing children
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Speaker 1: have just been found in Michigan during a sex trafficking sting.
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Speaker 1: A hundred and twenty three missing children were found across
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Speaker 1: Wayne County and a single suite aimed at identifying and
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Speaker 1: saving missing children victims of sex trafficking. You know, Mark Class,
4:32
Speaker 1: when we first started this business of trying to find
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Speaker 1: missing people, which you've devoted your life to after someone
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Speaker 1: abducted your daughter Polly, I kind of poop poo sex trafficking.
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Speaker 1: I thought that was too organized, that you couldn't get
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Speaker 1: defendants together to have a six trafficking ring with children
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Speaker 1: without somebody talking. Boy, was I wrong? Mark Class? How
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Speaker 1: does it happen? For most of our history, uh, human
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Speaker 1: trafficking in the United States was a supply and demand issue.
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Speaker 1: We always thought that foreign nationals were supplying our demand.
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Speaker 1: But what we found in recent years, really almost in
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Speaker 1: the last ten years or since Governor President Bush signed
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Speaker 1: the first t v p A in two thousand and one,
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Speaker 1: what we have discovered is that is that our youth
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Speaker 1: are supplying our demand. So we have runaway children who
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Speaker 1: become very, very vulnerable and oftentimes fall under the spell
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Speaker 1: of human traffickers and find themselves caught. And law enforcement
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Speaker 1: understands this now in ways that they couldn't even five
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Speaker 1: or ten years ago, and they're working in multi jurisdictional
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Speaker 1: task forces like the one in Michigan that are comprised
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Speaker 1: of law enforcement, nonprofit organizations, oftentimes merchants to try to
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Speaker 1: figure out who these kids are and where they are,
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Speaker 1: and this demonstrates of reprofound success in that effort. Listen
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Speaker 1: to this. My childhood was filled with just constant trauma,
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Speaker 1: and at the same time I had to hide it
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Speaker 1: and had to act like it was a normal childhood life.
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Speaker 1: People often want to assume that when I say that
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Speaker 1: I'm a survivor of sex trafficking, that I'm from Southeast
6:17
Speaker 1: Asia UM, and I fit that stereotype. So i want
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Speaker 1: people to know that it happens here, and that I'm
6:23
Speaker 1: a US citizen was born here in the UM. I
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Speaker 1: was told to hear you're hearing the voice of men Dang,
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Speaker 1: also a child sex trafficking survivor, As she is speaking
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Speaker 1: out in Melody Miller's documentary California's Forgotten Children. This with
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Speaker 1: a backdrop of a recent staying where one hundred and
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Speaker 1: twenty three children were discovered in a single sweep in
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Speaker 1: Wayne County to Kenya Johnson, Atlanta prosecutor. You know, Kenya,
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Speaker 1: I recall that particular case and prosecuting the pump that
7:00
Speaker 1: we're pimping out the girl. Just so you know, I
7:03
Speaker 1: got a mistrial in the opening statement when I called
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Speaker 1: the defendants pimps. They were not charged with pimping. They
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Speaker 1: were charged with aggravated child molestation. I can't even remember
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Speaker 1: all the charges, but yeah, I got a mistrial. It
7:19
Speaker 1: was in front of Judge Don Langham. He was a
7:21
Speaker 1: great judge. There's nothing you could do about it. You
7:24
Speaker 1: know what I did? I said, fine. That was on
7:28
Speaker 1: a Monday morning. We had struck the jury and just
7:30
Speaker 1: started opening statements when I called him a pimp, which
7:33
Speaker 1: was true, and got a mistrial. As you know, Grand
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Speaker 1: Jury and Inner City Atlanta is on Tuesdays and Fridays.
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Speaker 1: I think it was I got grabbed the detective by
7:45
Speaker 1: the call and went, come on, come on, we're going
7:47
Speaker 1: straight down to the Grand Jury. We re and dited
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Speaker 1: the case, okay, and included misdemeanor count of pimping. On Wednesday,
7:57
Speaker 1: we restruck a brand new jury and I gave the
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Speaker 1: aime opening statement. And I remember the girl was so
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Speaker 1: afraid of testifying against her traffickers we called him pimps.
8:08
Speaker 1: Now they're sex traffickers. That she ran away in the
8:12
Speaker 1: middle of the trial. Honey, let me just tell you,
8:15
Speaker 1: I had her picture all over the evening news. We
8:18
Speaker 1: found her at like one am one night, hiding and
8:22
Speaker 1: had to basically put her in protective custody to testify.
8:26
Speaker 1: Thank god, we got a conviction. But back then, at
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Speaker 1: that time, it was called pimping, not sex trafficking. Kenya Johnson,
8:34
Speaker 1: that's the white in here in Atlanta. We see that
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Speaker 1: very often. Atlanta is a hub for sex trafficking due
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Speaker 1: to its proximity to the interstate highways and the world's
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Speaker 1: busiest airport. So congratulations on speaking with that case and
8:48
Speaker 1: and and try and get in the way that it
8:51
Speaker 1: should be tried. What I find is interesting is our
8:54
Speaker 1: research shows that human trafficking TEX trafficking is not your
8:58
Speaker 1: traditional lady of the night street walkers on corners, but
9:03
Speaker 1: now it has grown into the internet and computer base.
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Speaker 1: So they have these affinity groups and networks of hundreds
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Speaker 1: of people that are interested in these sex slaves and
9:15
Speaker 1: underage a women or young ladies for sex. And so
9:18
Speaker 1: it's a very protective network. Uh that is very alive
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Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and we need more prosecutors like you
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Speaker 1: that are willing to follow the cases all the way
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Speaker 1: through to make sure that they are tried and resolved appropriately.
9:32
Speaker 1: What do you do if your child goes missing? Do
9:35
Speaker 1: you know what to do? I will never forget when
9:38
Speaker 1: my son I was with John David and Lucy alone
9:40
Speaker 1: with them. They were about two and a half and
9:43
Speaker 1: John David went missing in the blink of an eye
9:46
Speaker 1: and a huge babies are us superstore? What do you do?
9:51
Speaker 1: Did you know? Four hundred and fifty thousand missing children
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Speaker 1: are reported every year, one in seven runaways. We now
10:00
Speaker 1: believe our victims of child sex trafficking. Nearly of attempted
10:05
Speaker 1: kidnaps happened when a child is walking to or from school.
10:09
Speaker 1: I just want to go run right now and check
10:12
Speaker 1: on the children. What do you do if the unthinkable
10:16
Speaker 1: happens to you? This isn't just a story or a
10:21
Speaker 1: hypothetical question. It happens every day. I want you to
10:27
Speaker 1: learn from people who have dedicated their lives to protecting children.
10:33
Speaker 1: Go to crime stops here dot com. I want to
10:38
Speaker 1: tell you about a new online video series for you
10:42
Speaker 1: called Justice Nation Crime stops Here. It is a five
10:46
Speaker 1: episode series delivering action information you can apply in everyday
10:51
Speaker 1: life to protect what you love the most, your family.
10:56
Speaker 1: Go to crime stops here and get a huge discount.
11:01
Speaker 1: No that portions of proceeds are going to Class Kids
11:07
Speaker 1: Foundation and NICKMA National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
11:12
Speaker 1: Crime stops here dot com. Class starts October six. He's
11:19
Speaker 1: the son of the former Louisiana Chief Justice, and now
11:22
Speaker 1: he's accused of buying and selling a fourteen year old
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Speaker 1: girl to have sex with. According to the Bill of Information,
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Speaker 1: on multiple occasions, Pascal Calligharo, the third paid a hundred
11:32
Speaker 1: and twenty dollars to have sex with the child. The
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Speaker 1: documents say Callighero also drove the child to a hotel
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Speaker 1: on o'keeth Street to have sex with another man. In fact,
11:42
Speaker 1: the documents say Calighero began to sell the child to
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Speaker 1: multiple mint. Federal prosecutors say Caligharo used his own home
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Speaker 1: for prostitution dates he set up between the child and
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Speaker 1: an adult male. Neighbors say they noticed multiple men and
11:56
Speaker 1: at least one young girl going in and out of
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Speaker 1: the house. In the past done a lot of advocacy.
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Speaker 1: Sherry Lockridge is a human trafficking case manager for Covenant House.
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Speaker 1: She says this story represents a common arc. We've seen
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Speaker 1: that before, where John's have become then the trafficer, where
12:14
Speaker 1: they've used that to introduce themselves to the girls um
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Speaker 1: as a customer and then exploit them further. She also
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Speaker 1: says stories like this are more common then people realize.
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Speaker 1: It happens every day right here, downtown, uptown, suburbs Matterie Kenner, everywhere.
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Speaker 1: In a federal Bill of information, prosecutors say fifty nine
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Speaker 1: year old Pascal Caligharo the Third trafficked of fourteen year
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Speaker 1: old girl, Federal investigators say, and may have last year.
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Speaker 1: Caligharo the Third engaged in prostitution dates with the victim
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Speaker 1: and drove her to dates with others. They say he
12:46
Speaker 1: also negotiated prices and arranged times and locations of prostitution
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Speaker 1: dates with other men. Caligharo the Third is the son
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Speaker 1: of retired Chief Justice of Louisiana Supreme Court, Pascal Caligaro Jr.
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Speaker 1: Who is the longest serving justice in state history. According
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Speaker 1: to federal investigators. Caligher the third conspired with another person
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Speaker 1: listed on the bill as j B, who is accused
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Speaker 1: of recruiting the fourteen year old to work for him
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Speaker 1: as a prostitute. Attorney Bobby Horsburg says, the charges are serious.
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Speaker 1: They're not only accusing him of having sexual, you know,
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Speaker 1: sexual encounter with this minor, but they're also accusing him
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Speaker 1: of facilitating other sexual encounters between this minor and other individuals.
13:27
Speaker 1: Um and so obviously that's that's very serious. The son
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Speaker 1: of a retired Louisiana chief justice charged with sex trafficking
13:38
Speaker 1: a minor child. You were hearing from our friends at
13:42
Speaker 1: w w LTV News in New Orleans, Lauren Biale and
13:46
Speaker 1: New Orleans Fox eight Rob Krieger, reporting on federal charges
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Speaker 1: against the son of a Louisiana chief justice. You want
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Speaker 1: to tell me that child sex trafficking is not happening.
14:00
Speaker 1: It is happening right under our noses. Joining me, Mark Class,
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Speaker 1: Melody Miller, Joseph Scott, Morgan, Karen Start and Kenya Johnson
14:12
Speaker 1: to Joseph Scott Morgan. If the children are too afraid
14:16
Speaker 1: to speak out, how can you prove it? And I mean, here,
14:18
Speaker 1: you've got the son of a retired Louisiana Chief Justice.
14:23
Speaker 1: And what about Lt. Remember him Lawrence Taylor, the football
14:29
Speaker 1: star who competed on Dancing with the Stars. He ordered
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Speaker 1: up a little girl like she was a pizza delivery
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Speaker 1: and then raped her in his hotel room. He got
14:43
Speaker 1: zero jail time. Yeah, Lt. Lawrence Taylor. Every time I
14:50
Speaker 1: watch him dancing across the floor on Dancing with the Stars,
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Speaker 1: I want to puke. How does that happen? And how
14:54
Speaker 1: can we prove it? Joe Scott, It's very difficult, Nancy.
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna mention to two streets here, and the first
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Speaker 1: one is from my old jurisdiction in New Orleans. It's
15:05
Speaker 1: called Airline Highway. Many people will be familiar with it
15:09
Speaker 1: from the Jimmy Swaggered incident many years ago. And the
15:12
Speaker 1: other places something you're very familiar with, and that's Stewart
15:15
Speaker 1: Avenue now known as Metropolitan. Well stop right there, hold on,
15:19
Speaker 1: hold on, just before you finish your story, that's where
15:22
Speaker 1: I found the little girl. I was telling Kenya Johnson
15:26
Speaker 1: about and a flop house on Stewart Avenue. I think
15:30
Speaker 1: it was called the Twin Oaks or something like that.
15:32
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's called now, but it was
15:33
Speaker 1: a a filthy at the time motel. Yeah, there was
15:38
Speaker 1: the Alamo. There were a variety of these places. And uh,
15:42
Speaker 1: it's interesting, you know, you draw this comparison the case
15:45
Speaker 1: involving LT with kind of ordering up a peach. Do
15:48
Speaker 1: you stop calling him LT? It's Lawrence Taylor. What are
15:52
Speaker 1: your best best friends with him? Uh? No, absolutely not.
15:56
Speaker 1: I don't generally hang out with people that snort cocaine.
15:58
Speaker 1: But at any rate, these two places are notorious and
16:03
Speaker 1: they are absolute dens I mean dens of of horror
16:07
Speaker 1: and strife for these young girls that come into these
16:10
Speaker 1: areas there in these hotels many times their walking to stroll,
16:14
Speaker 1: they have their pimps that are that are out in
16:17
Speaker 1: the dark shadows watching them. That these girls have no
16:19
Speaker 1: way to escape, and it leads to horrible things drug addiction.
16:23
Speaker 1: It's a pestilence in the in the local neighborhoods, that
16:26
Speaker 1: affluence that affects the people that lived there. And also
16:29
Speaker 1: for these poor girls that are so desperate and longing
16:33
Speaker 1: for for help. Many times they end up killing themselves.
16:36
Speaker 1: And that's the horror to Karen's New York psychologist, what
16:40
Speaker 1: he just said is true that many of the children
16:43
Speaker 1: end up committing suicide. Explore. You heard one of the
16:46
Speaker 1: girls who was talking Nancy, and she was saying that
16:49
Speaker 1: she would never have lived until nineteen. That was predicted
16:52
Speaker 1: to her. And you could understand how that happens because
16:57
Speaker 1: they are too young to be able to press this developmentally.
17:01
Speaker 1: What is going on with them life is despair. They
17:05
Speaker 1: have no way out, they don't see a future. They're
17:09
Speaker 1: addicted to drugs, they're being taken advantage of the news
17:12
Speaker 1: for sex, and so they kill themselves because there is
17:17
Speaker 1: no other alternative for them. The way that they see it,
17:20
Speaker 1: it's terrific. You know. Jackie here in the studio with
17:23
Speaker 1: me is pointing out something that one Melody Miller, the
17:27
Speaker 1: director of California's Forgotten Children, one of her survivors men
17:32
Speaker 1: Dang said. She said, quote, I was born here and
17:35
Speaker 1: I was sold here to Mark Class, founder of Class
17:39
Speaker 1: Kids Foundation. Mark. People have the misconception that these child
17:44
Speaker 1: sex victims are from you know, like Thailand or China.
17:49
Speaker 1: That's not true, Mark, Well, that's exactly right. We are
17:52
Speaker 1: supplying our own demand. And it's estimated, Nancy, that one
17:56
Speaker 1: point two and one point six million children run away
18:00
Speaker 1: in this country every year, and that half of those
18:02
Speaker 1: children are girls. And what happens is they run away
18:05
Speaker 1: from from their homes, they find themselves in a very
18:09
Speaker 1: small fish and a very big pond. They may find
18:12
Speaker 1: themselves in Atlanta, for instance, or San Francisco or Los Angeles,
18:16
Speaker 1: and they are very vulnerable. And what happens is that
18:20
Speaker 1: the pimps are looking for that, they're looking for vulnerable children,
18:23
Speaker 1: and then they use all of the means necessary to
18:26
Speaker 1: coerce and groom and lure these girls into their web
18:31
Speaker 1: of protection, so to speak. And you find situations where
18:34
Speaker 1: children who have not really had any kind of a
18:37
Speaker 1: solid relationship in their lives are drawn to these guys
18:40
Speaker 1: and they feel that these guys actually care for them,
18:43
Speaker 1: and they end up finding themselves being traffic. They've been
18:46
Speaker 1: betrayed again and again and again in their lives to
18:49
Speaker 1: the point where they seem to feel that there are
18:53
Speaker 1: absolutely no options for them, which is when we have
18:57
Speaker 1: to intervene and try to find a way to give them.
19:00
Speaker 1: If you know or think you know of a child
19:03
Speaker 1: being mistreated or a sex trafficking victim, dial eight five
19:07
Speaker 1: five eight one four seven seven to eight eight five
19:11
Speaker 1: five eight one four seven seven to eight. I grew
19:16
Speaker 1: up in plufire it see more than fourteen songs that
19:18
Speaker 1: I've green remember, but a lot of times growing up
19:21
Speaker 1: in the PU racism, I just was quitting positions where
19:24
Speaker 1: I was abused by beliefs. Actually, I was also being
19:27
Speaker 1: told that I was the hep to buttic paytake. I
19:30
Speaker 1: can fully company what's going on. At that age, I
19:33
Speaker 1: would see n I was debating. I'll be talking to
19:35
Speaker 1: a girl about fifteen sixteen. You know, early seventeen, I
19:39
Speaker 1: didn't have any dreams, and now I've exceeded beyond anything
19:43
Speaker 1: that I could have ever meant. You are hearing from
19:46
Speaker 1: a child sex trafficking survivor with Elma te or Tease.
19:50
Speaker 1: Walker Pettigrew lived to tell her tale, and she told
19:55
Speaker 1: it to Melody Miller, documentarian of California's Forgotten Children. Melody,
20:01
Speaker 1: your documentary California Has Forgotten Children is making all the
20:05
Speaker 1: rounds at film festivals right now, and I'm sure it's
20:08
Speaker 1: going to be highly, highly acclaimed. But when you look
20:12
Speaker 1: back on speaking to all these people, these child sex
20:16
Speaker 1: trafficking survivors, what is your prevalent thought, Well, the documentary
20:21
Speaker 1: took me five years to make. It was a long
20:24
Speaker 1: and beautiful journey. Uh. And I think what kept me
20:27
Speaker 1: going and what kept me inspired and was the survivor's
20:31
Speaker 1: stories and all the amazing things that they're doing now
20:34
Speaker 1: they're healing journey and just being able to give back
20:38
Speaker 1: and create such a huge change in our society by
20:42
Speaker 1: telling their stories, and it's just really inspiring for me,
20:46
Speaker 1: and it's what kept me going to share their stories
20:49
Speaker 1: to Mark Class Victims Advocate, founder of Class Kids Foundation.
20:53
Speaker 1: All over the Atlanta airport and airports all over the country.
20:57
Speaker 1: There are now posters and build words about trying to
21:01
Speaker 1: stop child sex trafficking. What do we look for? What
21:04
Speaker 1: do we look for? What we look for situations? And
21:08
Speaker 1: somebody had just mentioned this whole thing has moved onto
21:10
Speaker 1: the Internet and the pimps are trafficking the girls via
21:16
Speaker 1: the Internet. They were doing it via Craigslist until it
21:19
Speaker 1: was stopped, and they were doing it via back Page
21:23
Speaker 1: until they stopped doing it. And so they just migrate
21:26
Speaker 1: two different websites to do it. And what they do
21:30
Speaker 1: is they advertise children and they identify them by keywords
21:37
Speaker 1: like new to business, young and tender, pretty young things,
21:41
Speaker 1: fresh meat, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So if anybody sees those
21:45
Speaker 1: kinds of advertisements and they need to do something about it, well,
21:48
Speaker 1: then let me take that in a moment. New to
21:51
Speaker 1: the Business, young and tender mark class is child sex
21:56
Speaker 1: trafficking as prevalent in rural area as in metropolitan areas,
22:01
Speaker 1: because its Wayne County, Michigan, sweet that included rural areas
22:06
Speaker 1: to sure sure it goes on absolutely everywhere. And that's
22:09
Speaker 1: something we understand and realize now that we didn't understand
22:12
Speaker 1: even a decade ago. Um. And I'll tell you where
22:15
Speaker 1: it really takes off is when you get into huge venues,
22:19
Speaker 1: things like the Super Bowl, places where you have a
22:22
Speaker 1: lot of men with disposable money and a lot of time.
22:25
Speaker 1: Then you're going to find a great migration to these venues,
22:28
Speaker 1: and the activity on things like backpage or craiglist will
22:33
Speaker 1: will um multiply tenfold in the week leading up to
22:36
Speaker 1: these situations, and then they'll disappear and move someplace else,
22:40
Speaker 1: oftentimes back to the rural areas. In the aftermath of
22:44
Speaker 1: these huge events, you know, human sex trafficking of children
22:48
Speaker 1: is happening right under our noses. One girl says she
22:54
Speaker 1: woke up in a room in a house in New
22:56
Speaker 1: Jersey she had never seen before. There were two men
22:59
Speaker 1: in the room. One was who had gotten her out
23:02
Speaker 1: of jail. She's a teen a teen girl when she
23:05
Speaker 1: was picked up on a theft charge, and he, somebody
23:08
Speaker 1: she had never met, bailed her out. After she refused
23:13
Speaker 1: to become one of their sex slaves, he rammed her
23:18
Speaker 1: head into a bucket field with bleach and glass shards.
23:23
Speaker 1: And I am reading directly from court documents. A grand
23:27
Speaker 1: jury listened in November as this woman, who only refers
23:32
Speaker 1: to herself as victim number five, talked about being in
23:36
Speaker 1: another room as all this was happening. To take a listen,
23:42
Speaker 1: an end to domestic violence, sexual assault, in human trafficking.
23:46
Speaker 1: I will not live to see it. I think folks
23:50
Speaker 1: think about they have a mental picture of who is trafficked,
23:54
Speaker 1: and it's so much more than that. And there is
23:57
Speaker 1: actually people who were you know, can live in an area,
24:02
Speaker 1: never leave their neighborhood and be trafficked as well. It's
24:05
Speaker 1: a lot of times when this happens, it's not someone
24:08
Speaker 1: someone would look for. Also, people kind of have this
24:13
Speaker 1: vision of pretty woman, you know, with prostitution, and there's
24:18
Speaker 1: no richer gears out there either. So what we see
24:22
Speaker 1: is folks that you know, yes, there are some folks
24:26
Speaker 1: that are trafficked and brought into this country. That is
24:31
Speaker 1: not the rule, especially for what we're seeing here in
24:35
Speaker 1: Adams County. Uh, there are good There is that, and
24:39
Speaker 1: there's quite a bit of that, but we also see
24:42
Speaker 1: folks that are trafficked by people close to them. You know,
24:46
Speaker 1: I would really like to be out of business because
24:48
Speaker 1: we're not needed and you know that no one does
24:52
Speaker 1: this anymore, But unfortunately that's not the case. You were
24:56
Speaker 1: just hearing from Terry Hammering, the president and see of
24:59
Speaker 1: Serve live Ors, Inc. She has been working to end
25:03
Speaker 1: human trafficking four years, as we all have. You know,
25:09
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out how you prove it, how
25:12
Speaker 1: you stop it, And the only way I know to
25:14
Speaker 1: stop it is to prove it and to prosecute it.
25:18
Speaker 1: And I don't understand. Uh, let me go to you
25:21
Speaker 1: on this Mark Class. How was it then in Wayne
25:24
Speaker 1: County they knew where one hundred and twenty three missing
25:29
Speaker 1: children were in one sweep. I believe it was through networking, Nancy.
25:35
Speaker 1: I believe that they diligently talked to the families, to
25:37
Speaker 1: the fringe, to the acquaintances, and they put the pieces
25:40
Speaker 1: of the puzzle together and when they felt that they
25:43
Speaker 1: had that puzzle figured out, they went out and did
25:45
Speaker 1: their sweep. And that's how they pulled That's how they
25:48
Speaker 1: pulled in all of those kids. Take a listen, Mark Class,
25:51
Speaker 1: this will interest you. W x y Z t V
25:54
Speaker 1: news detroits Seema Chaldry and she's talking to the Michigan
25:58
Speaker 1: State Police Missing Person Unit Sergeant Sarah Cribs. Listen, we
26:02
Speaker 1: took a ride along with police. In one case, officers
26:05
Speaker 1: found a fourteen year old staying in a vacant house.
26:08
Speaker 1: He hadn't eaten a meal in three days. Those are
26:11
Speaker 1: the types of kids that we're dealing with in this
26:12
Speaker 1: and it's really sad. Once recovered, the next step is
26:15
Speaker 1: to ask a series of questions to find out if
26:17
Speaker 1: there were sex trafficking victims, who did they stay with,
26:21
Speaker 1: did somebody pay for you know, pay for them to
26:24
Speaker 1: stay somewhere, Do they do favors for them? Did they
26:27
Speaker 1: give them drugs? Officials tell us one in six runaways
26:30
Speaker 1: get involved in sex trafficking. By finding them and not
26:34
Speaker 1: only saves their life, but it could lead police to
26:36
Speaker 1: the traffickers. In less than a day, law centials recovered
26:40
Speaker 1: more than one missing kids from Wayne County. Of those,
26:44
Speaker 1: three sex trafficking cases have opened. If we can do
26:47
Speaker 1: this more often, hopefully we won't have this bit of
26:49
Speaker 1: a problem. You know, and and to you, Melody Miller,
26:52
Speaker 1: a documentarian of California's Forgotten Children. People think, where are
26:57
Speaker 1: you going to find child six trafficking victims? Or how
27:00
Speaker 1: are they going to act if you see them in public?
27:02
Speaker 1: If they are out in public, they blend in. They
27:07
Speaker 1: blend in because they're too afraid to spake. Melody, Yeah.
27:10
Speaker 1: I think what really drove me to fight in this
27:14
Speaker 1: movement is when I was in high school and I
27:16
Speaker 1: started volunteering for Missy. I wasn't able to meet any
27:19
Speaker 1: of the children because they were going to the same
27:21
Speaker 1: high school as me, so I didn't A victim could
27:25
Speaker 1: have been sitting right next to me in my classroom.
27:28
Speaker 1: And so from that moment on I knew that I
27:30
Speaker 1: had to do something about it and had to fight
27:33
Speaker 1: for my peers. He drove me off into an industrial
27:36
Speaker 1: area and he's customed at me, and they told me
27:38
Speaker 1: he's going to kill me and if I didn't really
27:40
Speaker 1: told him to do. But I looked on the dashboard
27:42
Speaker 1: and there was this picture of this little girl and um,
27:45
Speaker 1: I asked him, you know, is that your daughter? And
27:47
Speaker 1: he said yeah, And I said, I'm somebody's daughter too.
27:52
Speaker 1: You know where you please let me go. I had
27:55
Speaker 1: had to tell me that I wasn't going to make
27:58
Speaker 1: it trying to get One of the happiest moments in
28:01
Speaker 1: my life was when I graduated from college. You are
28:05
Speaker 1: hearing the voice of a child six trafficking victim. That
28:09
Speaker 1: was Leah Jeanette Albright Bird, who is now a nationally
28:14
Speaker 1: recognized the motivational speaker and human rights educator. You know,
28:19
Speaker 1: I'm just so overwhelmed, and it's it's hard to change
28:23
Speaker 1: public perception. Because Karen Stark New York psychologists, I thought
28:27
Speaker 1: for so many years children were kidnapped um or they
28:31
Speaker 1: ran away. But I always would suspect a kidnap when
28:34
Speaker 1: a child would go missing but this is much bigger
28:37
Speaker 1: than single kidnaps. This is child sex trafficking and it's
28:42
Speaker 1: happening all around us. Do you remember, Karen, when you
28:45
Speaker 1: and I covered the case of Shasta Grone. She and
28:49
Speaker 1: her brother Dylan were kidnapped and brutally raped over and
28:54
Speaker 1: over and over. Dylan was murdered. And then video surveillance
28:58
Speaker 1: emerged after we begin cover ring it on TV so often,
29:02
Speaker 1: and a seven eleven worker, a convenient store worker, identified
29:05
Speaker 1: Shasta and she was just walking along a few paces
29:09
Speaker 1: behind her kidnapper and her brother's killer. She looked sad
29:12
Speaker 1: and downcast, and she wasn't speaking, but she wasn't screaming
29:16
Speaker 1: for help. She didn't indicate in any way that something
29:20
Speaker 1: was wrong or run up to someone and say help me.
29:21
Speaker 1: I've been kidnapped. So you can't tell when you see
29:25
Speaker 1: a child sex trafficking victim. You don't know that. Why
29:28
Speaker 1: you don't know that because they're not capable of asking
29:31
Speaker 1: for help. They are terrified, and they become indoctrinated where
29:35
Speaker 1: they don't feel like they should belong in a different situation.
29:39
Speaker 1: They don't really understand anymore what's happening to them. This
29:43
Speaker 1: is what life is like it becomes normal. So they're
29:47
Speaker 1: terrified for their life, but they've also adapted to the situation,
29:51
Speaker 1: believing that they deserve to have this happen. They take
29:54
Speaker 1: responsibility for it. Children blame themselves for everything. Take a
29:58
Speaker 1: listen to this, which go right along with police. In
30:01
Speaker 1: one case, officers found the fourteen year old staying in
30:04
Speaker 1: a vacant house. He hadn't eaten a meal in three days.
30:07
Speaker 1: Those are the types of kids that we're dealing with
30:09
Speaker 1: in this and it's really sad. Once recovered, the next
30:12
Speaker 1: step is to ask a series of questions to find
30:14
Speaker 1: out if there were sex trafficking victims, who did they
30:17
Speaker 1: stay with, Did somebody pay for you know, pay for
30:21
Speaker 1: them to stay somewhere, Do they do favors for them?
30:23
Speaker 1: Did they give them drugs? Officials tell us one in
30:26
Speaker 1: six runaways get involved in sex trafficking. By finding them
30:30
Speaker 1: and not only saves their life, but it could lead
30:33
Speaker 1: police to the traffickers. In less than a day, Lawn
30:36
Speaker 1: Cincials recovered more than one missing kids from Wayne County.
30:40
Speaker 1: Of those, three sex trafficking cases have opened. If we
30:44
Speaker 1: can do this more often, hopefully we won't have this
30:46
Speaker 1: big of a problem. You're hearing from w x y
30:48
Speaker 1: Z TV News Detroit Sema Choudhry speaking with Michigan State
30:53
Speaker 1: Police Sarah Cribs about a huge operation Michigan Safe Kids
30:58
Speaker 1: that say a hun and twenty three child victims. You
31:03
Speaker 1: know that begs the question, what would you do if
31:07
Speaker 1: your child went missing? Do you know what to do?
31:11
Speaker 1: Do you know that over four hundred fifty thousand missing
31:14
Speaker 1: children are reported every year. One in seven so called
31:18
Speaker 1: runaways are now believed to be victims of child sex trafficking.
31:22
Speaker 1: Age doesn't matter to the sex traffickers or the kidnappers.
31:26
Speaker 1: What do you do if the unthinkable happens to you?
31:30
Speaker 1: You know what? I've got Mark Class right here with me,
31:33
Speaker 1: who joined me as we were creating Justice Nation. Crime
31:37
Speaker 1: Stops Here, a five episode series delivering action information that
31:43
Speaker 1: you apply in your daily life. You go to Crime
31:47
Speaker 1: Stops Here dot com. You know, Mark Class, you were
31:50
Speaker 1: the one that told me nearly of kidnaps happened to
31:54
Speaker 1: and from school and I could not believe it. Mark.
31:57
Speaker 1: It's absolutely unbelievable because given that knowledge, we can take
32:02
Speaker 1: steps to be able to protect children on those school
32:05
Speaker 1: routes and dramatically cut the instances of stranger abduction in
32:09
Speaker 1: the United States. And I'm talking about surveillance, whether it's
32:12
Speaker 1: high tech, whether it's slow tech. I'm talking about better
32:15
Speaker 1: school bus routes. I'm talking about, you know, giving children
32:20
Speaker 1: the knowledge that they may be targeted going to and
32:23
Speaker 1: from school because of the patterns that have been established.
32:26
Speaker 1: And you know, you really opened my eyes to that.
32:29
Speaker 1: We cover safe at home, out and about safe online,
32:32
Speaker 1: safe at school, safe at daycare or with a babysitter.
32:37
Speaker 1: Go to crime stops here dot com, use promo co
32:42
Speaker 1: Nancy for off. Proceeds are going to National Center for
32:47
Speaker 1: Missing and Exploited Children and Class Kids Foundation founded by
32:52
Speaker 1: Mark class to help save children. Right now, we are
32:57
Speaker 1: really spurred on by a Michigan sweep that discovered one
33:03
Speaker 1: d and twenty three missing children, many of whom we
33:07
Speaker 1: now believe were sex trafficked. You know, I'm so overwhelmed
33:12
Speaker 1: with what is happening. Just got Morgan, for instance, on
33:16
Speaker 1: a plane, let's just say, on a plane, how do
33:19
Speaker 1: you identify that a child has been sex traffic Well,
33:23
Speaker 1: I think that in my estimation that if the child
33:26
Speaker 1: is acting oddly, say they're reserved maybe perhaps Uh they're
33:31
Speaker 1: acting in terror. Uh they look diminished in some ways,
33:36
Speaker 1: say for instance, Uh they're frightened. Uh, they're contracted in
33:40
Speaker 1: some way, perhaps seeking something to eat. Maybe they haven't
33:44
Speaker 1: been fed in sometimes. You know. I'm reminded of a
33:47
Speaker 1: a very recent instant where an airline ticket agent saved
33:52
Speaker 1: two teenage girls from human trafficking. It was an American
33:56
Speaker 1: Airlines ticket agent. The quick thinking on behalf of that
33:59
Speaker 1: agents saved two little girls in a human trafficking, sex
34:04
Speaker 1: trafficking scheme. And that is according to police in Sacramento,
34:08
Speaker 1: these two teen girls were boarding a flight to New
34:12
Speaker 1: York from Sacramento without i d without adults, without luggage.
34:18
Speaker 1: That's a big indicator, according to ticket attendant Denise Miracle.
34:24
Speaker 1: And what a name? How appropriate is that? She called authorities.
34:29
Speaker 1: She said the tickets were first class and purchased online
34:33
Speaker 1: as mark class. Just told us with a credit card
34:36
Speaker 1: and a name they did not match either one of
34:39
Speaker 1: the girls, and the card had been flagged for fraud.
34:44
Speaker 1: Between the two little girls, they had a bunch of
34:46
Speaker 1: small bags and it looked like they were running away
34:49
Speaker 1: from home. And they kept looking at each other that
34:52
Speaker 1: looked fearful, and this flight attendant just got the feeling,
34:56
Speaker 1: the deep feeling that something was very wrong. As it
35:02
Speaker 1: turned out, after the flight attendant, Miss Miracle calls the cops.
35:07
Speaker 1: The girls say that a guy named Dre had gotten
35:11
Speaker 1: their tickets, that they had first met on Instagram, and
35:15
Speaker 1: that they were going to be paid to thousand dollars. Well,
35:20
Speaker 1: guess who Dre was? A child sex trafficker? What about
35:27
Speaker 1: that mark class? Well, you know, it's the century phenomenon, Nancy,
35:32
Speaker 1: that we finally are identifying these underage girls. And when
35:35
Speaker 1: I say underage, I mean under the age of eighteen
35:38
Speaker 1: that are engaged in prostitution. We prior to the twenty
35:41
Speaker 1: one century, we always considered them criminals. They were the prostitutes.
35:46
Speaker 1: Now we understand that it's a very different dynamic, that
35:49
Speaker 1: in fact they are the victims and that the real
35:51
Speaker 1: criminals are the ones that control them. So just that
35:55
Speaker 1: shift in understanding has led to this this whole open
36:00
Speaker 1: us about the issue, so that UH ticket counters are
36:03
Speaker 1: able to identify people that might be involved in these
36:07
Speaker 1: kinds of situations. So it's about education, it's about awareness,
36:11
Speaker 1: and it's about continuing the fight to save these young girls.
36:14
Speaker 1: If you have any information on human trafficking, a tip,
36:20
Speaker 1: even a theory something you've seen, please call eight eight
36:24
Speaker 1: three seven three seven eight eight Nancy Grace Crime Story
36:28
Speaker 1: signing off, goodbye friend,