Senior Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, September 23, 2010
HUNTSVILLE - It took a federal jury 25 minutes Wednesday to convict a Florence man in a sex-trafficking case involving a 15-year-old girl.
Zelaya-Rodriguez Manuel Enrique Zelaya-Rodriguez, 31, 233 N. Crown St., was found guilty of trafficking an underage girl for sex and coercing a minor to engage in prostitution.
He also was convicted of harboring an illegal alien and for failing to file a report with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about an illegal alien in his employment.
The case is linked to an ongoing nationwide investigation into human trafficking, FBI agents say.
Zelaya-Rodriguez’s trial began Monday at the federal courthouse in Huntsville.
“This is nothing but modern-day slavery,” U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance said. “We must go full speed ahead on these kinds of cases. It’s important we stand up and do the right thing when people are victimized, no matter who they are or where they are from.”
Zelaya-Rodriguez, who also goes by “Mecanico,” has been in federal custody since Sept. 9, 2009. He is accused of arranging sexual encounters for money between men living in the region and the 15-year-old girl, who was brought to the country without proper immigration document. Federal agents said he harbored the girl in Florence and forced her to engage in commercial sex acts between Aug. 25 and Sept. 8, 2009.
Florence police arrested Zelaya-Rodriguez in September 2009 after a traffic stop near a trailer park, which had been a source of complaints and allegations of prostitution, according to testimony. The 15-year-old girl was in the car with Zelaya-Rodriguez and told police he was prostituting her.
Vance commended Florence police in recognizing a potential case of human trafficking and making the arrest.
“The stop here was the result of a police officer who had some good training and put it to good use,” she said.
Florence police originally charged Zelaya-Rodriguez with four counts of first-degree promoting prostitution. After the arrest, the girl was placed in the custody of the Lauderdale County Department of Human Resources.
At the time of Zelaya-Rodriguez’s arrest, the girl told police she received $30 to have sex with the men. She originally told police she was 29 but later admitted she was 15.
Police said it appears Zelaya-Rodriguez scheduled the sexual encounters, took the girl to a designated site, dropped her off and returned later to pick her up.
“We have shut down this particular trafficker and, hopefully, given pause to others who would commit the same morally reprehensible crime,” Vance said. “Human trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor is a growing problem in North Alabama and across the country. It’s a grave concern of the Department of Justice. We want a zero-tolerance policy on this crime.”
Agents in the Florence FBI office and ICE agents led the federal investigation of the case, Vance said.
Vance said it is important that people realize these cases exist in Alabama.
“This is not just happening to illegal immigrants, but it happens to runaway girls and others who are victims of kidnapping,” she said. “People keep their heads in the sand and think not in Alabama. A big part of our goal is to give the public the knowledge that this is going on.
“I can’t began to imagine what this child went through. I don’t want to see this happen to any child.”
Officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Zelaya-Rodriguez faces a minimum 10-year prison sentence and a maximum sentence of life in prison. A sentencing date was not immediately set, and Zelaya-Rodriguez will remain in custody.
Respectfully submitted from: http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100923/NEWS/100929942/0/news50
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