A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/florida" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Florida</a> sheriff said that his department “always” caught <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/disney" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Disney</a> employees during undercover operations, while revealing the results of a week-long investigation into human trafficking. 
The large investigation, known as “Fall Haul 2,” was spearheaded by the Polk County Police Department and involved a week-long sting operation in central Florida that netted over 150 arrests.  
“Our goal is to identify victims, offer them help, and arrest those who are fueling the exploitation of human beings (Johns) and those profiting from the exploitation of human beings. Prostitution is not a victimless crime – it results in exploitation, disease, dysfunction, drug and alcohol addiction, violence, and broken families,” Sheriff Grady Judd <a href="https://www.polksheriff.org/news-investigations/polk-county-news/2022/09/09/polk-county-sheriff-s-office-arrests-160-during-seven-day-human-trafficking-enforcement-operation-operation-fall-haul-2">said</a> in a statement. 
People from Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, California, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arizona were all arrested during the undercover operation. Notable arrests included a Disney bellhop, a Georgia police deputy chief, and a high school physical education teacher.
The Disney employee, 57-year-old Guillermo Perez, was arrested for soliciting a prostitute. Perez is a bellhop for Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. While showing Perez’s photo while at the press conference, Judd suggested he was not surprised to have arrested a Disney employee. 
“Now, where would we be with an undercover operation and no Disney employees?” he said. “Oh yes, we always have Disney employees.”
Also arrested was an independent photographer who the sheriff’s department said is occasionally &#8220;contracted by Disney.&#8221; 
Jason DiPrima, the former deputy chief of administration for the Cartersville Police Department in Georgia, was arrested as well for soliciting a prostitute. DiPrima, who has since resigned from his position, allegedly gave an undercover detective $180 and a pack of White Claw, according to the sheriff. 
“He did a mean, nasty thing to his family,” Judd <a href="https://www.wfla.com/news/polk-county/disney-worker-teachers-among-160-arrested-in-polk-county-human-trafficking-investigation-sheriff/">said</a>. 
A correctional officer at Lake County Correctional Facility was  also detained and will now be “in the jail as a jailbird like those jailbirds he watches,” the sheriff said. 
Several school employees were also arrested during the sting. Twenty-six-year-old P.E. teacher John Layton was arrested for soliciting a prostitute and received a terse response from the sheriff when he said that he had track practice in the morning. 
“No, the students have track practice in the morning; you have jail practice in the morning,” Judd stated. 
One former teacher, 41-year-old Cameron Burke, who was out on bond, was also caught up in the investigation. Burke had been facing charges related to accusations that he had been having sex with a 15-year-old student. Judd said that Burke was emotional, but got little sympathy from the sheriff. 
“Dude, why didn’t you think of that ahead of time?” he said. “Of course, you only have three brain cells.”
Drugs were also seized during the seven-day investigation.
Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/introducing-dw-kids">kids entertainment content</a>.

Flashing Lights on Police Car

‘We Always Have Disney Employees’: Florida Sheriff Reveals Results Of Human Trafficking Investigation

Florida Police Arrest Over 150, Including Disney Employee, In Human Trafficking Investigation

Florida

Human Trafficking

Police

Sex Trafficking

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi">FBI</a> agents and local authorities rescued 141 adult victims of human trafficking, 84 minor victims of child sex trafficking and related crimes, and have identified 37 actively missing children during a two-week nationwide operation in August dubbed <a href="https://www.missingkids.org/ourwork/impact">&#8220;Operation Cross Country.&#8221;</a>
The average age of victims in similar operations is approximately 15 years old, while authorities said the youngest victim discovered during this operation was 11 years old.
&#8220;Human trafficking is among the most heinous crimes the FBI encounters,&#8221; FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fbi-announces-results-nationwide-sex-trafficking-operation">statement</a>. &#8220;Unfortunately, such crimes—against both adults and children—are far more common than most people realize.&#8221;
Federal officials arrested 85 suspects of child sexual exploitation and human trafficking offenses as part of Operation Cross Country, which conducted 391 operations over two weeks. Teams included in the operation consist of FBI special agents, intelligence analysts, victim specialists, and child adolescent forensic interviewers working with 200 local, state, and federal partners.
Victim specialists provide a bridge for survivors who have lost trust in the system by helping them establish a positive relationship with law enforcement.
Specialists also help survivors receive available resources based on individual needs, such as crisis intervention and basic living needs.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which also partnered with the operation, said the success of rescuing the minors who were trafficked reinforces what the organization sees daily.
&#8220;Children are being bought and sold for sex in communities across the country by traffickers, gangs, and even family members,&#8221; Michelle DeLaune, President and CEO of the center, said in a statement. &#8220;We&#8217;re proud to support the FBI&#8217;s efforts to prioritize the safety of children. This national operation highlights the need for all child-serving professionals to continue to focus on the wellbeing of children and youth to prevent them from being targeted in the first place.&#8221;
The center&#8217;s website <a href="https://www.missingkids.org/ourwork/impact">reports</a> it assisted law enforcement, families, and child welfare with 27,733 missing children cases.
According to the FBI&#8217;s National Crime Information Center, there were 337,195 entries for missing children in 2021. The number of missing child entries was 365,348 in 2020.
&#8220;The initiative really just takes a concentrated period of time when we&#8217;re just focused on the problem of child sex trafficking,&#8221; Section Chief Jose Perez, who oversees violent crime investigations in the FBI, said according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-nationwide-operation-locates-actively-missing-kids-child-sex-trafficking-victims">Fox News</a>. &#8220;What we do is we sit down with our local partners and our task forces and identify certain areas where we know sex trafficking is prevalent, and we&#8217;ll dedicate resources and efforts to identify and remove victims from those areas.&#8221;

eye of boy through key whole, child abuse concept

Nationwide Sex Trafficking Operation Rescues 141 Adults And 121 Minors

Child Abuse

Child Sex Abuse

Christopher Wray

One week after a federal judge ruled that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/visa">Visa</a> Inc. allegedly helped monetize child pornography through adult websites like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pornhub">Pornhub</a>, the payment processing giant on Thursday said it would suspend its services with the advertising arm of Pornhub’s parent company, MindGeek.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of the Central District of California wrote, &#8220;Visa knew that MindGeek&#8217;s websites were teeming with monetized child porn,&#8221; in the Fleites v. MindGeek lawsuit filed last year alleging Pornhub&#8217;s operator violated federal sex trafficking and child pornography laws.
Visa, who has since condemned child sex trafficking, sexual exploitation, and child sex abuse materials, had asked the court to dismiss the claim that the company violated a California law prohibiting false advertising and illegal business practices. However, Judge Carney denied the request.
Alfred Kelly, CEO of Visa, wrote in a <a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog/bdp/2022/08/03/we-do-not-1659542369610.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a> that the company &#8220;strongly disagree[s]&#8221; with the judge&#8217;s decision, adding the allegations have mischaracterized its policies and practices.
&#8220;The allegations in this lawsuit are repugnant and stand in direct contradiction to Visa&#8217;s values and purpose,&#8221; Kelly wrote.
Kelly, who felt compelled as a father and grandfather to speak out, said Visa cards would no longer be able to purchase advertising on any sites affiliated with MindGeek.
MindGeek&#8217;s advertiser, TrafficJunky, which garners 4.6 billion daily ad impressions on the world&#8217;s top adult websites, has indefinitely lost its &#8220;privileges&#8221; with Visa after the recent legal decision has created &#8220;new uncertainty&#8221; about the advertiser&#8217;s role, Kelly wrote.
&#8220;Visa has longstanding rules and processes designed to uphold the integrity of our network,&#8221; the CEO wrote. &#8220;We have taken this opportunity to reiterate and reinforce our requirements with respect to legal transactions with all acquiring institutions – those institutions that bring merchants to our network and hold direct relationships with them.&#8221;
&#8220;We have made it clear that acquirers and merchants who are unable to meet our standards and requirements are not welcome on our network,&#8221; Kelly added.
Following a New York Times exposé published in 2020 that highlighted the story of Serena Fleites, the plaintiff in the case against MindGeek, Visa suspended its services with websites that contained user-generated content in December 2020. To this day, the company says users cannot use Visa cards on Pornhub.
Fleites alleges a former boyfriend pressured her into making a sexually explicit video which he would later upload to Pornhub without her knowledge or consent when she was 13 years old. The video garnered millions of views and spiraled the plaintiff&#8217;s life out of control.
MindGeek issued a statement that said the court has not ruled on the veracity of the allegations and is required to assume all of the plaintiff&#8217;s claims are true and accurate.
&#8220;When the court can actually consider the facts, we are confident the plaintiff&#8217;s claims will be dismissed for lack of merit,&#8221; a spokesperson from MindGeek told Variety. &#8220;MindGeek has zero tolerance for the posting of illegal content on its platforms and has instituted the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history.&#8221;
The online porn network operator also claims to have banned uploads from anyone who has not submitted government-issued identification that passes a third-party verification.
MindGeek said it eliminated the ability to download free content, integrated several leading technology platforms and content moderation tools, and instituted digital fingerprinting of all videos found to violate its rules against non-consensual content and child sexual abuse.
&#8220;Policies to help protect against removed videos being reposted, expanded our moderation workforce and processes, and partnered with dozens of non-profit organizations around the world,&#8221; MindGeek&#8217;s spokesperson said. &#8220;Any insinuation that MindGeek does not take the elimination of illegal material seriously is categorically false.&#8221;
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation has played a part in an international effort to dismantle Pornhub by acting as co-counsel on a <a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/wp-content/uploads/Doe-v-Mindgeek-amended-complaint-7.27.2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">class action lawsuit</a> filed on behalf of two childhood sex trafficking survivors alleging the videos and images of their abuse were posted on Pornhub and other MindGeek-owned sites.
As the case against MindGeek develops, the non-profit has called on Visa to cut ties with the pornography industry altogether.
&#8220;Visa long supported the monetization of child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, rape, and image-based abuse images found on MindGeek-owned pornography websites by continuing to process payments for the company despite being put on notice by NCOSE and others of the abuse. Now, Visa has taken an incremental step, but they must do more,&#8221; Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the non-profit, told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;If Visa cares about these issues as much as they say they do, Visa must suspend all payment processing services for XVideos, XHamster, and all pornography tube sites as well as their advertising arms, not only TrafficJunky,&#8221; Hawkins said.
However, Visa&#8217;s CEO wrote the company would not make moral judgments on lawful purchases and said customers could purchase content from MindGeek studio sites that feature adult professional actors in legal adult entertainment.

Matt Cardy Archive

Visa Suspends Business With Pornhub Ad Services Following Child Porn Case Ruling

Pornhub

Pornography

Visa

An adult website operator pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a San Diego federal court to a sex trafficking conspiracy that fraudulently forced and coerced women into pornography videos published on two separate websites, GirlsDoPorn and GirlsDoToys.
Matthew Isaac Wolfe, 40, admitted that he played a vital role in persuading at least 15 women into pornography by claiming the videos would never reach audiences in the United States or online while knowing the recordings were exclusively marketed and distributed on the internet.
&#8220;Wolfe lied to and preyed on vulnerable young women, subjecting them to years of relentless harassment, fear, and mental anguish,&#8221; Stacey Moy, special agent in charge of the FBI San Diego Field Office, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/girlsdoporn-operator-pleads-guilty-sex-trafficking-conspiracy">said</a>.
Authorities also named four co-defendants in the alleged conspiracy: Ruben Andre Garcia, 33, Valorie Moser, 39, Theodore Wilfred Gyi, 44, and GirlsDoPorn owner, 39-year-old Michael James Pratt.
Wolfe admitted in 2011 that he moved to the United States to work for Pratt, where he would eventually perform various responsibilities until authorities arrested him in 2019. Such tasks allegedly included promoting the business, overseeing the company financials, and uploading the videos onto the internet — approximately 100 of which he filmed — until training co-defendant Theodore Gyi as a cameraman and producer.
Wolfe also admitted that Pratt allegedly controlled pornwikileaks.com, a website exposing individuals&#8217; identities in sex videos, and shared the victims&#8217; personal information and social media accounts.
The San Diego Union-Tribune <a href="https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/story/2022-07-26/girlsdoporn-operator-admits-business-built-on-a-sex-trafficking-conspiracy?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter">reports</a> a federal grand jury indicted Wolfe three years ago while he and others were facing a lawsuit filed by 22 female victims in San Deigo Superior Court. Wolfe and the others would allegedly recruit women as &#8220;models,” who would then be pressured into having sex on camera in various locations like hotel rooms and short-term rentals. Victims testified that they were given alcohol and marijuana before signing a contract, raped, and threatened if they asked to stop.
The videos were published on GirlsDoPorn and other websites despite the women, one of whom was a minor at the time, believing it was for a DVD collection overseas.
The case would eventually end in a $12.7 million judgment against Wolfe, Pratt, and adult performer Ruben Andre Garcia.
&#8220;This crime had a devastating impact on the victims,&#8221; U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said.
Wolfe faces a maximum penalty of up to life in prison, while Moser and Gyi, who also pleaded guilty to similar charges, await their sentencing.
Garcia received 20 years after pleading guilty to a sex trafficking conspiracy to a U.S. District Judge in June 2021.
However, Pratt, who authorities have charged with producing child pornography and sex trafficking a minor by force, fraud, or coercion and faces 15 years in prison, is still at large.
Authorities believe Pratt, a New Zealand citizen, fled the country during the civil trial and has ties to multiple countries with &#8220;financial means to be anywhere around the world.&#8221;
&#8220;We know there are people that are helping Pratt,&#8221; William McNamara, a San Diego FBI spokesperson Special Agent, told The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Authorities listed Pratt as a fugitive and have offered up to $50,000 in reward money for information leading to his arrest.

A prisoner behind bars with hands cuffed

Porn Website Operator Pleads Guilty To Sex Trafficking Conspiracy

Crime

San Diego

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill on Friday that reversed the loitering law police used to crack down on human trafficking and prostitution in the Golden State.
Authored by San Francisco&#8217;s Democrat Sen. Scott Wiener, <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB357">SB 357</a> repeals a law that criminalized &#8220;loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution.&#8221; He says the law gave law enforcement a subjective perception of whether a person is &#8220;acting like&#8221; or &#8220;looks like&#8221; they engage in prostitution—especially transgender, black, and brown women. However, Weiner says revoking the law would not decriminalize soliciting or engaging in prostitution.
But opposers of the bill — on and off the Senate floor — all conclude taking away authority to investigate such loitering cases creates an easier environment for traffickers, pimps, and prostitution.
Former Los Angeles Police Department vice sergeant Stephany Powell, who has since become the director of law enforcement training and survivor services at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said the bill would severely limit law enforcement&#8217;s ability to identify victims of human trafficking — including minors.
&#8220;Many officers rely on the loitering laws to initiate trafficking investigations that have led to serious convictions for traffickers and pimps,&#8221; Powell said in a <a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/if-california-governor-signs-loitering-bill-into-law-sex-trafficking-will-inevitably-rise/">statement</a>. &#8220;SB 357 assumes that loitering laws are used to merely harass marginalized people, and by repealing them, these people will experience less discrimination from police. In reality, repealing loitering laws will only cause further harm to communities with existing poverty and high crime.&#8221;
CBS reported The Los Angeles County Sheriff&#8217;s Department and the 75,000-member Peace Officers Research Association of California also objected to the bill as it would make confronting those who commit prostitution-related crimes more difficult and Powell said in a tweet on Saturday that the &#8220;California bear has a tear in his eye&#8221; the day after Newsom signed the legislation.
&#8220;The Black community will be a free place for sex buyers (solicitation) and traffickers (procurement) to loiter and roam,&#8221; she <a href="https://twitter.com/stephany_dr">said</a>.
Victims of human trafficking and advocates to end modern-day slavery who opposed the bill spoke out against it at a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiiaDO21Rcc">press conference</a> just before it passed through the Assembly and Senate last year.
Vanessa Russel, founder of Love Never Fails, a San Francisco-based anti-sex trafficking organization, said instead of providing help to survivors, the bill hurts them and causes the demand to increase.
Survivor Hannah Diaz, who joined Russel last year at an event opposing the bill, said &#8220;fatalities will increase&#8221; without the intervention allowed by law enforcement.
&#8220;With trauma-informed training and identification tactics, Diaz said. &#8220;Officers are an invaluable asset to the war against human trafficking.&#8221;
Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) said law enforcement works with anti-trafficking non-profits to rescue sex-trafficked minors and women.
&#8220;When we separate the victim on the street with the pimp down the block and around the corner,&#8221; Patterson said according to <a href="https://www.californiafamily.org/2021/09/prostitution-bill-passes-but-held-in-senate-over-doubts-raised-in-passionate-debate-on-assembly-floor/">California Family Council</a>. &#8220;They are not going to jail; they are going to a safe house. They are going to a place that cares for them.&#8221;
Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine) said the bill further endangers women and girls.
&#8220;We often vote on very well-intentioned legislation that has unintended consequences,&#8221; Petrie-Norris said. &#8220;For me, the unintended consequence is making it more difficult to protect victims of child trafficking, even if that is a possibility.&#8221;
Yet Weiner&#8217;s supporters of the bill — like ACLUE California Action and Equality California and Democrats lawmakers — believe reversing the legislation takes away law enforcement authority to harass minority women, the transgender community, or individuals who look or dress like prostitutes.
Gov. Newsom stated during his signing of the bill, The Sacramento Bee <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article263034468.html">reported</a>, that his administration would monitor crime and prosecution trends for any possible unintended consequences and would act to mitigate such impacts.
&#8220;To be clear, this bill does not legalize prostitution. It simply revokes provisions of the law that have led to disproportionate harassment of women and transgendered adults,&#8221; he said. &#8220;While I agree with the author&#8217;s intent and I am signing this legislation, we must be cautious about its implementation.&#8221;
California has implemented several loitering laws in recent years. In 2016, the state passed a law that would treat minors involved in prostitution as victims instead of criminals. In addition, a 2019 bill bans arresting prostitutes who report various crimes as victims or witnesses.

LAPD’s Vice Squad

Gov. Newsom Signs Off On Reversing Loitering Law Police Used To Crack Down On Human Trafficking And Prostitution

Loitering Law Police Used To Crack Down Human Trafficking And Prostitution Reversed By Newsom

California

Gavin Newsom

Prostitution

A California bill to prohibit arrests for loitering with the intent to take part in prostitution has been sent to Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) desk after passing the state legislature.
Senate Bill 357 would get <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-20/a-bill-to-repeal-californias-anti-loitering-law-is-on-newsoms-desk">rid</a> of the misdemeanor law that doesn’t allow people to loiter in public with the intention to carry out prostitution. Those in favor of the bill say that police use the loitering restrictions to unfairly go after Californians of color, as well as transgender people. They also say the current law results in sex workers operating in dangerous situations as well as supposedly inhibits their ability to get a job or housing because of their criminal history.
Opponents of the measure point out that it will endanger women and children who could be used for sex trafficking purposes.
The bill passed the legislature in September, but it didn’t get sent to Newsom’s desk until Monday. The governor needs to sign it within 12 days or decide to veto it. He could also permit it to go into effect without signing the bill.
In a letter asking Newsom to veto the bill, a group of advocates against human trafficking <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdeR8IeexQk8qJXNAaLu0q6Vd_MmKzrgefnnHdqbM4vZ0UgSw/viewform">wrote</a> that the bill “will harm our most vulnerable communities by giving buyers, traffickers and pimps the freedom to troll the community for women and children to victimize without fear of consequence.”
Greg Burt, a spokesman for the California Family Council, and other critics also worry that the measure is part of an overall attempt to decriminalize prostitution.
“This bill seems to be perfect if you want sex trafficking to even increase in California,” he said, per <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/california-eyes-banning-loitering-prostitution-arrests-85515098">ABC News</a>. “This bill is really going to affect poor neighborhoods — it’s not going to affect neighborhoods where these legislators live.”
Some also <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/california-eyes-banning-loitering-prostitution-arrests-85515098">view</a> the bill as reducing the ability of the police even further to do their job and arrest people for crimes such as car theft and shoplifting.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement to the state Senate that the part of California’s penal code that the bill would get rid of is utilized in order to “target sex buyers who seek to exploit.”
“While the intent of this legislation is to protect the prosecution of a vulnerable community, the unintended consequences will be to benefit the sex buyers as well,” the department wrote.
Vanessa Russell is the founder and Executive Director of Love Never Fails, a group that works with survivors of trafficking. “Removing the police is not going to reduce harm. It’s going to create more harm because you haven’t [held] the buyers and exploiters accountable, so you are going to increase demand,” Russell said.
 Russell has laid out a legislative concept known as <a href="https://www.pathwaytosafety.org/">Pathways to Safety</a>, which describes itself as a &#8220;Survivor-led and community-driven legislative solution to prevent the crime of sex trafficking in California while empowering survivors and communities to heal and thrive.&#8221;

A close up shot of a pair of handcuffs on a table.

California Bill To Prohibit Arresting Those Loitering For Prostitution Sent To Newsom

California Bill To Prohibit Arrests For Loitering With Intent To Engage In Prostitution Sent To Gavin Newsom

Federal, state, and local authorities announced the rescue of 70 missing children in parts of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico.
“Operation Lost Souls” recovered the missing children — many of whom were runaways ranging between the ages of 10 and 17 — throughout Texas, as well as the state of Colorado and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hsi-el-paso-locates-recovers-70-missing-children-multi-agency-operation#:~:text=TX%20Child%20Exploitation-,HSI%20El%20Paso%20locates%2C%20recovers%2070,children%20in%20multi%2Dagency%20operation&amp;text=EL%20PASO%20%E2%80%93%20Homeland%20Security%20Investigations,week%20operation%20in%20West%20Texas">press release</a>.
The operation ran from the end of April through the middle of May, and its results were announced on May 25, which is also National Missing Children’s Day.
The rescued children included victims of sex trafficking and physical and sexual abuse. According to ICE, the agencies involved provided counseling to the children and their families.
“Operation Lost Souls exemplifies Homeland Security Investigations’ commitment to protecting the public from crimes of victimization. In this case, we are looking out for our children — our community’s most precious resource,” HSI El Paso Deputy Special Agent Taekuk Cho said in the press release. “HSI is committed to continue working with our law enforcement partners to locate, recover and help missing children heal, while ensuring that perpetrators are held responsible for these heinous crimes and brought to justice.”
“At the Department of Public Safety, teamwork is one of our core values,” Texas DPS Major Matthew Mull added. “We are grateful for all of our law enforcement partners who participated in this operation and who work around-the-clock every day to protect our communities, including our youth.”
The announcement of “Operation Lost Souls” comes days after authorities arrested eight individuals in connection with a 15-year-old girl who was allegedly <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-girl-trafficked-mavericks-dallas-suspects-arrested-oklahoma">trafficked from a Dallas Mavericks game</a> on April 8.
The girl allegedly separated from her father to use the restroom at the game and was later seen leaving the American Airlines Center with an unknown man. A few days later, the Texas Counter-Trafficking Initiative found the girl’s nude photos displayed on a website associated with prostitution. Police in Oklahoma City were able to recover the victim on April 18 — 11 days after her disappearance.
&#8220;We are thankful for the work of the Oklahoma City Police Department and the recovery of our daughter. My heart breaks for the unimaginable things my daughter had to endure for the 11 days she was taken, and I am so glad she is safe as we work toward her recovery,&#8221; the girl&#8217;s mother said in a May 5 statement.
Zeke Fortenberry, an attorney representing the family, questioned how the male suspect who allegedly lured the girl from the arena was able to obtain a fraudulent ticket.
&#8220;The systems and organizations involved in this case continually failed the victim. She should never have had contact with the man at the Mavericks game,” Fortenberry said. “This victim’s life will forever be changed.”
Following an interview on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/candace">Candace</a> last year, Tim Ballard — a former Department of Homeland Security special agent and founder of <a href="https://ourrescue.org/">Operation Underground Railroad</a> — explained that Americans are the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-many-more-can-we-get-out-inside-the-frontline-battle-to-end-child-sex-trafficking">largest drivers of demand</a> for the $150 billion global sex trafficking industry.
“The country with the highest demand is going to be the country most exposed to sexual material,” Ballard said. “And so, what country is as large as the United States where everyone has access to the internet? None. So that’s my theory as to why the United States is the largest consumer.”

Flashing lights on a police car

Authorities Rescue 70 Missing Children, Including Sex-Trafficking Victims In Texas, Colorado, And Mexico

70 Missing Children Rescued In Texas, Colorado, And Mexico, Authorities Say

Children

Colorado

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Mexico

Texas

A Chinese man has been reunited with his biological mother over 30 years after he was abducted. He was able to find his biological family by drawing a map of his childhood village from memory.
“Li Jingwei was just four years old when he was lured away from his home and sold into a child trafficking ring,” the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-59848162">BBC</a> reported. “On 24 December he shared a hand-drawn map to the video sharing app, Douyin, which police matched to a small village and a woman whose son had disappeared.”
DNA tests confirmed the relation, and they were reunited in Yunnan province in southwestern China on Saturday.
Li Jingwei was seen carefully removing his mother’s mask and breaking down in tears and embracing her after examining her face.
&#8220;Thirty-three years of waiting, countless nights of yearning, and finally a map hand-drawn from memory, this is the moment of perfect release after 13 days,&#8221; Li wrote prior to the reunion. &#8220;Thank you, everyone who has helped me reunite with my family.&#8221;
Li was abducted in 1989 near Zhaotong in Yunnan Province. He was then sold to a family living over 1,000 miles away. After failing to locate his biological parents through his adoptive parents or DNA databases, he posted a viral video seeking help.
​​&#8221;I&#8217;m a child who&#8217;s finding his home. I was taken to Henan by a bald neighbor around 1989, when I was about four years old,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is a map of my home area that I have drawn from memory.&#8221; 
In the video, he held up a rough guide of the village, which included &#8220;features like a building he believed to be a school, a bamboo forest, and a small pond.”
“Many children who are reunited with their original family after being abducted have been reluctant to bring legal action against their foster parents because they have grown to love them,” <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10362879/Man-abducted-Chinese-gang-four-reunited-mother-33-years-later.html">the Daily Mail</a> reported. “Mr Jingwei, who is married with children, said the family that adopted him taught him &#8216;the principles of being a human.’ He said this was &#8216;so that I could study hard and become a talent in the future.’”
“Discussing the abduction, Mr Li said he was taken by a man with a bald head. He knew him and ‘had no defense against him,’” <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/man-kidnapped-as-a-child-in-china-reunited-with-family-after-drawing-map-of-home-village-from-memory-12507517">Sky News</a> reported. “Later, a couple in their 40s bought him some new clothes and took him on a train journey lasting a day and a night before handing him to an adoptive family who treated him well, he said.”
“Child abductions are not uncommon in China, a society which places high value on having a son,” the BBC explained. “Many children are abducted at a young age and sold to other families. In 2015, it was estimated that 20,000 children were being abducted each year.”
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">@ighaworth</a>.

China

Man Reunited With Family 30+ Years After Being Kidnapped And Sold By Chinese Child Traffickers

Every year, it&#8217;s estimated that over two million children are subjugated to a $150 billion, worldwide sex slavery industry — and Americans are providing the demand.
Tim Ballard is the founder and president of <a href="https://ourrescue.org/">Operation Underground Railroad</a> — an organization which mobilizes operatives to rescue children held by global sex traffickers. Ballard is a former Department of Homeland Security special agent who worked with the United States Sex Tourism Jump Team. In 2019, he was tapped to serve on President Trump’s Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking.
After discussing his work on a recent episode of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/candace">Candace</a>, Ballard sat down with The Daily Wire to shed more light on the global child sex trafficking crisis — and what Americans can do to end it.
“How many more can we get out?”
At first, Ballard was extremely hesitant to spend his life fighting sex trafficking.
“I trained my whole life, I trained throughout my education to fight terrorism and drug smugglers. That was my dream since I was 18 years old, and I did everything I could to get to that place,” he recounted. “I was on the border as a federal agent — a special agent undercover operator, crawling through tunnels and super excited about that work. And in my first year, I get called into the office and get told ‘We&#8217;re gonna open up a child crimes unit.’ I was like, ‘No, I can&#8217;t do this. This is too dark.’ I don&#8217;t even know what it is, right? And so I told them no, I wouldn&#8217;t do it.”
It was Ballard&#8217;s wife, Katherine, who ultimately changed his mind: “She said to me, for the very reason I thought we couldn&#8217;t do this — because we have children — is exactly why we need to do this. And we understand what a childhood is supposed to be. So I gave it a shot.”
Ballard spent several years working on cases involving child exploitation material cases, including child rape videos. As he explained: “It was a thousand times worse than my mind could conjure up.” 
Ballard considered quitting. However, Customs and Border Protection apprehended a van in 2006 that was trafficking a five-year-old boy who Ballard had previously seen in a child exploitation video.
“So it was the first time I saw an actual child that was a victim of child exploitation material,” he said. “And at one point in that first night, this little boy ran up to me and hugged me and said, ‘I don&#8217;t belong here.’ And it just melted me. I was sobbing.”
The boy gave Ballard a necklace inscribed with the verse reference for 1 Timothy 6:11 — “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.” According to Ballard: “It was almost their rosary, like ‘This is what’s gonna save us, God’s gonna save us.’”
Also in 2006, the United States passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which made it possible for federal agents to travel overseas in pursuit of American sex tourists abusing foreign children. Ballard resigned his position with the government to launch Operation Underground Railroad in 2013 — a move that permitted him to also pursue cases involving non-Americans. 
During Operation Underground Railroad’s first mission, Ballard rescued two children out of a false orphanage in Haiti. At the time, Ballard did not know that he was rescuing his future adoptive son and daughter. 
Today, his two Haitian children continue to provide motivation for his work: “I see their faces every day. I know the trajectory of their lives, what was going to happen to them… Those kids remind me every day, ‘You&#8217;ll never stop doing this, there are millions.’ How many more can we get out?”
Katherine later launched <a href="https://cnfnow.org/">Children Need Families</a> — a project of Operation Underground Railroad that has helped facilitate the adoption of 113 children. The group plans to help adopt 491 children with Down’s syndrome who, as Ballard explained, are particularly vulnerable to subjugation. “In a lot of these countries&#8230; if they don&#8217;t get adopted by the time they&#8217;re six, they&#8217;re thrown into an institution where they&#8217;re completely abandoned at best, and abused and trafficked at worst. They&#8217;re considered subhuman, when in fact they&#8217;re the greatest amongst us.”
“Making them ripe for victimhood”
When asked why the United States is the number-one consumer of child exploitation material, Ballard pointed to the hypersexualization of American culture.
“How do you become the demand? How do you come to want sex with a child? It starts with pornography,” Ballard said. “It starts with porn addiction. Pornography creates a chemical reaction in the brain. It’s a dopamine effect. It’s all part of a godly system in the brain that facilitates and encourages healthy marriage relationships and procreation. So, it’s like the counterfeit of that.”
Ballard compared an addict’s forays into child pornography to a person seeking progressively stronger highs from various drugs.
“You want the dopamine hit, so what do you do? What’s the equivalent of going from marijuana to cocaine? You go from twenty-two years old to fifteen years old. And when that doesn’t work, you go to ten years old. And when that doesn’t work, you’re going to fly to a high trafficking area and rape a seven-year-old. Because you’re that gone.”
“The country with the highest demand is going to be the country most exposed to sexual material,” Ballard said. “And so, what country is as large as the United States where everyone has access to the internet? None. So that’s my theory as to why the United States is the largest consumer.”
Ballard noted that by exposing children to sexualized materials, government schools are employing the same tactics as traffickers.
“Candace and I talked about teachers who are now teaching children to masturbate and to learn terms like ‘clitoris’ and ‘erection.’ As I said to Candace, this is exactly what the traffickers are trying to do to children. If they can get access, they will try to desensitize them by showing them sexual things. Now they have teachers doing it for them… you’re just softening up these children and making them ripe for victimhood.”
“Or, you teach them that sexuality is so okay that a fourteen-year-old on Instagram is showing as much skin as they can,” he continued. “If you’re paying attention, there are traffickers commenting under the photos. ‘Hey, you’re so beautiful, why don’t you come to a photoshoot?’ That’s how they’re recruiting kids into trafficking.”
“Anyone that’s pushing that mentality — especially in public education — the reader can decide who’s doing that,” remarked Ballard. “Whoever’s doing that is on the wrong side of history.”
“People have to get involved”
As Ballard discussed, American citizens and institutions often fail to address the child sex trafficking crisis — a reality that stops it from ending.
“People are living their lives without even understanding there&#8217;s this underbelly where children and women are being trafficked to the tune of $150 billion per year.”
Ballard noted that the media’s silence on the matter is particularly deafening — and heartbreaking.
“Imagine this. I looked into the eyes of a child forty-eight hours ago, who a trafficker was trying to sell to me&#8230; I come home from an operation like that, and I see the headlines. The headlines that don&#8217;t match the story at all, because it’s complete sensational bullcrap. And I think to myself, this is a manifestation of our corrupt society — and a corrupt media, frankly. That there are actually problems that are real problems, like children being raped — two million a year — and that&#8217;s never a headline. It&#8217;s never a headline. That should be the headline every single day, then we can start talking about the tribal wars and red-versus-blue.”
Recalling the impetus for the Civil War, Ballard explained that “it’s always the media that ends slavery.”
“When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe for the first time in the middle of the Civil War — this was the author of ‘Uncle Tom&#8217;s Cabin’ who shined a light on the darkness of slavery — he said to her, ‘So you&#8217;re the lady that wrote the book that started this war.’ In other words, even he&#8217;s admitting ‘I wasn&#8217;t the one that got this going.’ The people got it going, the media got it going. So there has to be a shift in the media to where they start caring about problems that are so significant that it&#8217;s almost incomprehensible. And what’s incomprehensible is that they&#8217;re not telling these stories.”
“What&#8217;s gonna solve the problem are more interviews like this — responsible media outlets rising up and reporting the truth about what&#8217;s happening to our children,” he added. “Reporting the truth about what&#8217;s happening on the border right now, to these children who are being victimized by our own policies.”
American parents can therefore have a sizable impact in solving the crisis, according to Ballard.
In particular, parents ought to stop educators from bringing sexual themes into the classroom: “It’s a felony, depending on how they&#8217;re doing it. You&#8217;re not allowed to do that online; an adult can&#8217;t go to a child and show images of genitalia and talk about sex. And now you&#8217;re going to legitimize it in the classroom? It&#8217;s insane. So, rise up against that.”
Citing his experience with the Department of Homeland Security — during which he acted as a child online in order to capture pedophiles — Ballard warned that parents must be more mindful of their children’s activity on social media.
“Beyond that, it&#8217;s educating one another… to make sure your kids aren&#8217;t having unfettered access to the internet without any controls,” said Ballard. “Most parents don&#8217;t know that the gaming their children are doing gives pedophiles access to their children. I have talked to many parents and asked them, ‘Would you let your thirteen-year-old daughter go bar-hopping or clubbing on a Friday night?’ Well, does your thirteen-year-old have unfettered access to the internet? That&#8217;s almost certainly more dangerous. Because there&#8217;s about a million pedophiles out there hunting your child. Getting into their heads, influencing their actions.”
“And eventually, if they’re successful, luring them out into a place where they can be hurt. And parents don&#8217;t even understand it. ‘My daughter&#8217;s Instagram page, look, it’s sweet, it&#8217;s wholesome’ — I don&#8217;t care. No matter how wholesome their social media platform is, these children are always one click away from the devil. Or, the devil is one click away from them.”
Ballard also asserted that Americans must stop relying upon the federal government to solve their problems.
“When any problem is that big, it&#8217;s not going to be solved by any one government or even one agency,” he said. “People have to get involved. People have to rise up — again, going back to what we learned from history, Abraham Lincoln recognized that it wasn&#8217;t him. It wasn&#8217;t the government that eradicated slavery — ultimately they did their part, but the movement that really compelled them to do their part was the people.”
“The Underground Railroad wasn&#8217;t made up of government agencies&#8230; But it was a group of citizens that said ‘Enough is enough, we will go in, we will get these people out,’” he continued. “So, it&#8217;s always the people that need to rise up, and the false sense of security that government&#8217;s going to solve really any problem is what creates most of our problems.”
“We need to rise up and take care of everything in our lives, but not the least of which would be helping people — helping children — who are being raped for money.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

‘How Many More Can We Get Out?’: Inside The Frontline Battle To End Child Sex Trafficking

After traveling to the southern border with other Republican members of Congress and seeing the humanitarian crisis in person, Florida Rep. Kat Cammack (R) blasted President Biden, referring to him as the “Trafficker-in-Chief” and saying she “can&#8217;t even in good conscience call President Biden ‘president.’”
Fox News’ “The Story” host Martha MacCallum asked Cammack, “You hear Congresswoman (Veronica) Escobar (D-TX) saying there’s a better way to do this; do you agree with her on that?”
“There&#8217;s a better way to do this,” Cammack replied. “It&#8217;s what the Trump administration was doing. It was the most humane, compassionate and normal way for putting Americans first, our national security first. And I would challenge Representative Escobar to actually call this what it is, a crisis. It&#8217;s not a situation. This is a crisis. Just 24 hours ago I was there in Mission, Texas, and I saw firsthand young girls under the age of 10 that had been gang-raped. They had been screaming so loud that their vocal cords had given out. This is a humanitarian crisis. And I can&#8217;t even in good conscience call President Biden ‘president,’ I have to call him ‘trafficker-in-chief’ because these kids are being trafficked.”
“And the fact that my Democrat colleagues won&#8217;t even call this a situation that is a crisis?” she continued. “They have to call it anything but: it&#8217;s a ‘challenge,’ it’s a ‘situation.’ It&#8217;s not an emergency in their book; it’s a &#8216;situation.&#8217; When you have 20,000 children in custody and the border patrol agents are stretched thin to the max and we’re watching cartel members taunt our border patrol agents as they&#8217;re sending these children under six years old across the river by themselves, this is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. And so, let&#8217;s start by calling it what it is. But beyond that, we need to reinstate the MPP, the Migrant Protection Protocol. We need to extend Title 45. These are all things that are going to help border patrol agents on the ground and actually deliver a humane response to this crisis that&#8217;s unfolding. That&#8217;s where we can start.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PT7GRBXhBrQ" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Among the Trump immigration policies that Biden has reversed is the &#8220;remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, which required immigrants to remain in Mexico while undergoing the legal process to enter the U.S. Biden also immediately shut down building the border wall and has imposed policies that have reduced deportations and arrest by immigration authorities.
“Last month, 170,200 migrants were apprehended crossing the southern border illegally,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9452343/Florida-Rep-Kat-Cammack-says-Joe-Biden-trafficker-chief-border-crisis.html">The Daily Mail</a> reported. &#8220;March also saw the most migrant children crossing the border in history, with 18,890 unaccompanied minors being taken into cramped shelters. The previous record was around 11,000 back in May 2019.”
On Thursday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise stated on Fox &amp; Friends, “&#8217;I&#8217;ve talked to a lot of people that have been on the ground, it is beyond a disaster. What they&#8217;ve done not only to these border towns, the mayors, you hear them, Democrat and Republican, expressing outrage over what President Biden created.”

President Biden Delivers Remarks On Gun Violence Prevention From White House Rose Garden

WATCH: ‘Trafficker-in-Chief’: GOP Rep Who Visited Border Rips Biden

Illegal Immigration

Joe Biden

Kat Cammack

Southern Border

On Thursday, El Paso Border Patrol Sector Chief Gloria Chavez spoke to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/sisters-dropped-over-border-barrier-smugglers-ecuador-new-mexico">Fox News</a> about her experience visiting two young toddlers who were dropped over the side of the southern United States-Mexico border by human smugglers earlier this week.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/border-patrol-agents-rescue-toddlers-dropped-from-14-foot-barrier-at-border-into-u-s">The Daily Wire</a> reported on Thursday:
<blockquote>On Tuesday night, two young toddlers were dropped over a 14-foot-tall barrier into the United States at the New Mexico border before being rescued, according to officials.
On Wednesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a statement regarding the incident, stating that it was a life-threatening situation that involved “two female tender-aged toddlers mistreated and abandoned by human smugglers just west of Mt. Cristo Rey.”
Using filming technology, a Santa Teresa agent reportedly saw “a smuggler dropping two young children from the top of the approximately 14-foot-high border barrier” on Tuesday night. The two smugglers quickly left the region after discarding the girls on the northern side of the border.
The statement confirmed that the camera worker told agents working in Santa Teresa about the incident and helped them get to the remote area where it happened. “Responding agents found the three-year-old and five-year-old Ecuadoran children and rendered aid to them. The two toddlers are sisters and both were alert when agents made contact with them,” per the report.</blockquote>
The girls were taken to receive medical care and were placed in a holding facility.
&#8220;I was really horrified and appalled and worried when I first saw the images come through from my staff,&#8221; Chavez told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/sisters-dropped-over-border-barrier-smugglers-ecuador-new-mexico">Fox News host Neil Cavuto</a> on Thursday. &#8220;When I saw that first child dropped to the ground and then not see her move for a few seconds, I honestly thought this child just probably hit her head and is unconscious. And then I see the second child and immediately DHS, obviously, within a few minutes responded to that area to rescue them.&#8221;
&#8220;When I visited with these little girls, they were so loving and so talkative, some of them were asking the names of all the agents that were there around them, and they even said they were a little hungry,&#8221; Chavez recalled. &#8220;So I helped them peel a banana and open a juice box and just talked to them. You know, children are just so resilient and I&#8217;m so grateful that they&#8217;re not severely injured or [have] broken limbs or anything like that.&#8221;
Chavez told the outlet that officials had not seen &#8220;ruthless&#8221; smugglers leave unaccompanied children in those deserted regions outside of El Paso in the past.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been doing this for over twenty-five years now and we know exactly the tactics of these people,&#8221; she said. &#8220;For them, it&#8217;s just a profit &#8230; So when we see an image like that &#8230; that raises my alert and my worry that they may continue to try these tactics further out in the desert area like [near] Lordsburg, New Mexico [or] Fort Hancock, Texas, where it&#8217;s not urban, it&#8217;s very remote, it&#8217;s very rural and the logistics and the challenges that exist for Border Patrol agents to get to those locations are quite high.”
&#8220;So I worry when I see images like this and the tactics that smugglers are using [are] really hurting these children,” she added.
Chavez went on to discuss the efforts that are taken for children to get to the border.
&#8220;This is a coordinated effort all the way up to our border, right up to the smugglers operating in that area and then paying &#8212; either the families pay a fee or relatives pay a fee,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;If you saw in that video, there is a third item that is thrown over that barrier, and that was a bag,&#8221; said Chavez. &#8220;In that bag, there was a phone, there was a phone number and their passports. And we were able through the intelligence and the agents working this case already, they were able to make contact with the mother who resides in New York. So that connection has been made, and we continue with the investigation because &#8230; we want to get these guys so that they don&#8217;t do this to another unaccompanied minor on that border.&#8221;

98AB235D-60FF-4B74-B427-B29AEC909099_4_5005_c

Border Patrol Officer Meets Toddlers Who Were Dropped Over The Border Into The U.S., Says Girls Were ‘So Loving And So Talkative’

Border Crisis

Child Migrant Crisis

A former USA Gymnastics coach who worked with convicted rapist Dr. Larry Nassar killed himself Thursday, the same day he was hit with 24 charges, including human trafficking and sexual assault.
&#8220;Former U.S. Olympic gymnastics coach John Geddert, who led the women’s team to a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics, committed suicide Thursday after he was charged with sexual assault and human trafficking in relation to acts that occurred at a Michigan gym he owned and ran for decades,&#8221; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/02/25/john-geddert-gymnastics-human-trafficking/">The Washington Post</a> reported Thursday.
Geddert stood accused of “abuse and forced labor, intimidating them, threatening them and sexually abusing at least one victim by digitally penetrating her when she was between the ages of 13 and 16,” <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-john-geddert-former-us-olympics-gymnastics-coach-arrested-20210225-u55ha5jflvf43dshqbu32spmsi-story.html">The New York Daily News</a> reports.
Geddert and Nassar, the team’s doctor, worked together for roughly 20 years. In 2018, Nassar <a href="http://hollywoodlife.com/2018/01/24/larry-nassar-sentenced-prison-175-years-sexual-assault-jail/">was sentenced</a> to a minimum of 40 years and maximum of 175 years in prison for sexually assaulting scores of young girls, including members of the USA Olympic Gymnastic team Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles and others.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-father-3-abused-gymnasts-asks-1-minute-alone-hank-berrien/">At the sentencing</a>, Randall Margraves, whose three daughters were allegedly sexually assaulted by Nassar, stood facing Nassar in the Michigan courtroom. Margraves, whose daughters Lauren and Madison Rae had just finished speaking, plaintively asked the judge if he could have five minutes alone with the “demon” in a locked room. When the judge refused, saying, “You know I can’t do that,” Margraves hurled himself toward Nassar, prompting security officers to restrain him as Margraves cried out, “Let me at that son-of-a-b****!”
Prior to his death, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office issued a <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,4534,7-359-92297_99936-552927--,00.html">statement</a> vis-à-vis Geddert on Thursday saying:
<blockquote>Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office has filed 24 criminal charges against John Geddert … Geddert, 63, of Grand Ledge, was expected to turn himself in to authorities today at the Eaton County Sheriff’s Office Substation in Delta Township and was scheduled to be arraigned at 2:15 p.m. today in Eaton County District Court 56A before Judge Julie O’Neill. Charges filed against Geddert include: </blockquote>
<ul>
<li>14 counts of human trafficking, forced labor causing injury, a 15-year felony; </li>
<li>Six counts of human trafficking of a minor for forced labor, a 20-year felony; </li>
<li>One count of continuing criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony; </li>
<li>One count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a life offense felony; </li>
<li>One count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, a 15-year felony; and</li>
<li>One count of lying to a peace officer during a violent crime investigation, a four-year felony </li>
</ul>
The Attorney General’s office stated:
<blockquote>The Attorney General’s office alleges that Geddert’s treatment of young gymnasts constitutes human trafficking as he reportedly subjected his athletes to forced labor or services under extreme conditions that contributed to them suffering injuries and harm. Geddert then neglected those injuries that were reported to him by the victims and used coercion, intimidation, threats and physical force to get them to perform to the standard he expected. 
Geddert sold his reputation as an Olympic-level coach and promised to unsuspecting parents that he could turn his students into world-class athletes, allowing them to secure college scholarships, the Attorney General’s office alleges. Under the guise of coaching, he reportedly subjected multiple young women to an environment of continued abuse, in which he also neglected advice of medical doctors – except that provided by Larry Nassar, who served for around 20 years as Geddert’s team physician and in-house medical expert at Twistars.</blockquote>
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told reporters, “The victims suffer from disordered eating, including bulimia and anorexia, suicide attempts and attempts at self harm, excessive physical conditioning, repeatedly being forced to perform even when injured, extreme emotional abuse and physical abuse, including sexual assault.”
After the report of Geddert&#8217;s death, Nessel commented, “This is a tragic end to a tragic story for everyone involved.&#8221;

John Geddert

USA Gymnastics Coach Linked To Larry Nassar Commits Suicide After Being Charged For Sex Trafficking

Gymnastics

Larry Nassar

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