Suit: Police officers protected
sex trafficking ring in exchange for free sex
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by Matthew Barakat/NBC Washington
A federal lawsuit filed by a
prominent civil rights attorney alleges that police officers in Fairfax County
protected a sex trafficking ring in Northern Virginia in exchange for free sex
from the trafficked women.
The lawsuit also names former
Fairfax County Police Chief Ed Roessler as a defendant, alleging that he helped
cover up for the officers when another detective's work threatened to expose
their wrongdoing.
The suit was filed on behalf of a
Costa Rican woman identified in the lawsuit only as “Jane Doe.” It says the
officers would tip off the trafficking ring to suspend its online
advertisements in advance of sting operations run by police.
Victor Glasberg, the lawyer who
filed the suit on the Costa Rican woman's behalf, said in an interview police
have essentially corroborated elements of the woman's allegations by providing
him the names of the officers involved in the alleged misconduct.
When Glasberg first filed the
lawsuit in October, he did not know the identities of the officers who were
allegedly involved, because his client was never able to learn their names. But
he obtained a court order requiring the police department to identify the
officers described in the complaint.
Police responded with two names:
Michael O. Barbazette of Manassas and Jason J. Mardocco of Gainesville. Neither
officer remains on the force.
Glasberg amended his lawsuit last
week to include the officers' identities.
Calls and an email to numbers and
an address associated with Barbazette went unanswered. Calls and an email to
numbers and an address associated with Mardocco were not returned. Neither has
a lawyer listed in court records.
Glasberg said he tried for months
to negotiate with the county to avoid filing a lawsuit, because he believes a
trial will be an emotional burden for his client. While he's seeking a monetary
settlement for his client, Glasberg said his primary effort in negotiations was
to ensure some level of accountability for the officers, but his negotiations
were unsuccessful.
“I begged the county to resolve
this without litigation. I said, 'Let's get some accountability here,'" he
said. “In the end, they told me to go pound sand. ... This lawsuit is going to
be difficult for my client, but it's going to be a whole lot more difficult for
the county.”
Glasberg's amended lawsuit also
includes allegations from a former Fairfax police detective, who says his
efforts to investigate sex trafficking were thwarted by Barbazette, who was a
sergeant and his supervisor.
As the detective, William Woolf,
pressed his efforts to investigate, he said he was threatened by high-ranking
officers. He said he even received a call from Roessler, whose voice he
recognized even though he did not identify himself, saying, "I need to
make sure you’re willing to play ball,” according to the lawsuit.
Roessler resigned as chief
earlier this year. During his time as chief, Roessler received praise from
politicians and activists for his efforts at transparency and his willingness
to support criminal charges against officers accused of wrongdoing. But
officers on the force overwhelmingly supported no-confidence votes against him
conducted by police unions.
Calls and an email to numbers and
an address associated with Roessler were unanswered or disconnected.
According to the lawsuit, the
Costa Rican woman was recruited in her native country to come to the U.S. and
work as an escort, which she was told involved going on dates with wealthy men
but would entail prostitution.
But when she arrived in the U.S.
in late 2010, the woman who ran the trafficking ring, Hazel Sanchez Cerdas,
took her passport and forced her to engage in commercial sex. When the woman
said she wanted to leave, Sanchez alternately threatened to harm the woman's
family in Costa Rica or tell the family she was a prostitute, according to the
lawsuit.
Sanchez pleaded guilty in federal
court in Alexandria to running the prostitution ring and was sentenced to 2 1/2
years in prison. Prosecutors in that case said women in Sanchez's operation
were required to have sex with up to 17 customers a day, and instructed to
comply with requests even for particularly humiliating or dangerous sex acts.
There was debate during the case
about the degree to which women were coerced, and defense lawyers argued that
the victims had incentives to lie about how they were treated. But prosecutors
argued that women did indeed have their passports confiscated and were
threatened if they talked about leaving.
Sanchez's lawyer said in court
papers that trafficking ring operated from 2010 through 2012, but in the civil
lawsuit and in an FBI affidavit, the Costa Rican woman said she was coerced
into working for Sanchez through 2015.
