Matt Sandusky details alleged sex abuse by his father, Teen prostitutes rescued, pimps held, in FBI sweep

“He estimated that at least 100,000 minors were victims of child prostitution and trafficking each year….”

NBC exclusive: Matt Sandusky details alleged sex abuse by his father

By Michael Isikoff, NBC News

Jerry Sandusky’s adopted son Matt told police he was sexually molested by his father for years — and once fled in fear from the Sandusky home — during a secret police interview that took place in the middle of his father’s trial for child sex-abuse, according to a copy of the tape obtained by NBC News….

NBC News has exclusively obtained the 29-minute audiotape, which was recorded by police detectives on June 15, four days after the Jerry Sandusky trial began. At the time, the detectives were preparing Sandusky’s son to testify as a surprise prosecution witness at his father’s trial.

For years, Matt Sandusky had publicly stood by his father and even showed up on the first day of the trial, sitting with the rest of the Sandusky family. But after listening to the first day of testimony from a young man known in court documents as “Victim 4,” Matt Sandusky contacted police and volunteered to testify on behalf of the prosecution. The prosecutors’ plan was to use Matt Sandusky as a rebuttal witness if Jerry Sandusky took the stand in his own defense.

It turned out to be a crucial turning point in the Sandusky trial. When Jerry Sandusky learned that his own adopted son was prepared to testify against him, it was a “complete shock,” and it played a big role in his decision not to take the witness stand, according to one of his lawyers, Karl Rominger….

In his interview with police, Matt Sandusky was asked directly why he decided to change his previous denials of abuse and cooperate with police.

“I came forward, I mean, for different reasons,” he said. “But I mean for my family you know so that they can really have closure and see what the truth actually is. And just to right the wrong, honestly, of going to the grand jury and lying.”….http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/26/12417694-nbc-exclusive-matt-sandusky-details-alleged-sex-abuse-by-his-father

Teen prostitutes rescued, pimps held, in FBI sweep
Lily Kuo Reuters June 25, 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Seventy-nine teenagers held against their will and forced into prostitution were rescued at hotels, truck stops and storefronts in a three-day sweep of sex-trafficking rings across the United States, law enforcement officials said on Monday.

The FBI said 104 alleged pimps were arrested during sting operations in 57 U.S. cities including Atlanta, Sacramento, and Toledo, Ohio. The operation lasted between Thursday and Saturday and involved state and local authorities as well as the FBI….

One of the minors recovered in the sweep reported being involved in prostitution from the age of 11, according to Kevin Perkins, acting executive assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.

He said the cases were not “one-off” incidents, but evidence of “criminal enterprises” that lure minors in, often through social media, hold them against their will through threats to them or their families, and then traffic them through different U.S. cities.

Child prostitution is “a problem that happens in all kinds of American cities and it happens to American kids,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children….

He estimated that at least 100,000 minors were victims of child prostitution and trafficking each year but said assessments were hampered due to under-reporting and other data complications….

To date about 2,200 children have been rescued in the program, the FBI said, adding that its figures do not take into account children recovered by other state and local investigations.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-prostitution-childbre85o19h-20120625,0,1822308.story

New task force targets traffickers who force children into the sex trade

New task force targets traffickers who force children into the sex trade

FBI, Chicago police join forces to go after pimps

By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter

May 14, 2012

Inside the Harrison Police District station, the officers sat in a semicircle to be briefed about the shift ahead in one of Chicago’s most beleaguered areas.

But on this recent day, the topic was not the shootings and murders on these West Side streets, but a crime often pushed far back into the shadows — the thousands of young girls and women who are prostituted, pushed into the violence of Chicago’s sex trade.

FBI Special Agent Jonathan Williamson and Chicago police Sgt. Traci Walker were there to announce a new joint effort by the FBI and Chicago police to target child traffickers in the city….

The clandestine nature of sex trafficking makes it difficult to know exactly how many young women and girls work in prostitution, said DePaul College of Law researcher Jody Raphael. She has estimated that in Chicago as many as 25,000 are involved in the commercial sex trade, including exotic dancers.

Many who work the street or are sold on the Internet started out in the business in their teens. A 2008 survey of Chicago women working in prostitution who were 25 or younger and under the control of a pimp found that they began at 16 on average.

The younger the girl or woman, Raphael believes, the more likely it is she has a pimp or trafficker, in part because she is often recruited first into a romantic relationship.

Over the past decade, advocates have pushed law enforcement to re-examine how it views the crime of prostitution — especially for the young adults caught in the trade. Today, investigators are going after traffickers on one hand while extending social services to women working in prostitution. Chicago police, Cook County and federal authorities meet monthly to target offenders for the toughest punishment.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-human-trafficking-20120514,0,7415972.story

Child traffickers thrive on disasters

Child traffickers thrive on disasters
By David Singh
GENEVA, 26 March 2012 – Disasters and climate related catastrophes are increasing the dangers facing children today such as child trafficking, according to a recent report by Najat Maalla M’jid, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

“Children’s vulnerability is significantly increased when they are separated from their families, unaccompanied, orphaned or displaced following humanitarian crisis,” warned M’jid at a review of the report at the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council which ended on Friday.

“Some people exploit the chaotic environment that follows a natural disaster to engage in criminal activities, such as selling children for the purpose of illegal adoption, forced labour or sexual exploitation”, stated the report.

“The situation enables them to circumvent national and international standards and remove children from their communities or national territory. Furthermore, the collapse or absence of a State system during and after an emergency results in a protection vacuum for children who may become separated from their families”, the report said.

UNISDR United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

http://www.unisdr.org/archive/25934

Human Trafficking – Forced Prostitution. Slave Labor. $32 billion industry

articles:
- Crime Inc. – Human Trafficking – Forced Prostitution.
- The High-Dollar Trade in American Girls
- 2 former Orioles batboys say they were abused by former Red Sox clubhouse manager

Crime Inc. – Human Trafficking – Forced Prostitution. Slave Labor. CNBC goes inside a $32 billion underground industry that knows no moral bounds and stretches around the globe.

From prostitution to slave labor, human trafficking is a booming business. This $32 billion dollar underground industry knows no moral bounds, stretching around the globe. Crime Inc. examines the underground industry where hopelessness and greed create a sinister and sometimes lethal combination.

Sex Trade
The Commercial sex trade is a thriving business and you don’t have to go far to find its victims. In Tijuana, just across the California/Mexico border, many girls are forced into prostitution.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42490340

The High-Dollar Trade in American Girls
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000023572

2 former Orioles batboys say they were abused by former Red Sox clubhouse manager By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun March 5, 2012

As a teenager growing up in the shadow of Memorial Stadium, working as a batboy in the clubhouses with the Baltimore Orioles and opposing teams was a dream job for Ronald Shelton.

But Shelton said he quietly left the job before he had planned to do so after being twice sexually assaulted in an equipment room in 1990 by a Red Sox clubhouse manager, Donald Fitzpatrick, when the Boston team was in town. Now all these years later, Fitzpatrick has been linked to a growing number of claims of sexual assault. And Shelton has come forward.

“He told me to ‘Be good,’ and as I got older, I came to understand what that meant: Do not tell,” said Shelton, now a 38-year-old father. He said the experience made him fear being considered “abnormal,” and as a result of his experience, he is fiercely protective of his son.

Shelton and a second, unnamed former Orioles batboy this week joined a growing number of former Red Sox attendants who say that Fitzpatrick, who died in 2005, abused them.

Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian said Monday that though the statute of limitations for legal action has expired in many of the cases, the alleged victims are seeking settlements from the Red Sox as well as the Orioles because the teams failed to protect the young employees….

The Boston Globe reported that a total of 21 individuals have come forward to make claims spanning decades, and the newspaper called it the “worst sexual abuse scandal in Major League Baseball history.”….

Allegations of sexual abuse by Fitzpatrick are not new — he was convicted of sexually assaulting young boys in 2002 and one former clubhouse attendant showed up at a nationally televised game in 1991 holding a sign that read, “Don Fitzpatrick sexually assaulted me.” The Red Sox have paid settlements to several former attendants.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/breaking/bs-md-ci-batboy-sex-abuse-20120305,0,2438664.story