In Connecticut legislators and advocates want ways to combat human trafficking. They want increased prevention efforts and services to support women and children who are at a higher risk to exploitation. The meeting that legislators had this week want to expand Connecticut’s definition of sex trafficking. They also want victims not to be charged with trafficking if their trafficker made them recruit other kids.
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Girls can be as young as 12 when their “boyfriends” lure them into a life of sex trafficking. Traffickers ply their victims with drugs to encourage addiction, rendering them dependent, compliant and numbed. They force their victims to sell themselves many times a day. And victims’ troubles do not end there.
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Guy Fletcher, 35, of Bristol, CT, has been charged with human trafficking and promoting prostitution after a woman accused him of acting as her pimp and withholding money and property from her to keep her in his control.
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Simon Hessler, 47, of Ellington, CT, has been charged with four counts of fourth-degree sexual assault and four counts of risk of injury to a child. Hessler was previously arrested last year after seeking out girls between the ages of 10 and 12 online with the intent to train a young girl in his “slave quarters” and have sex with the girl.
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Hamlett “recruited and enticed two minor female victims to engage in prostitution at hotels in Hartford and Wethersfield” between August and November 2017 and to “solicit clients for the minors, Hamlett took sexually explicit photographs of each minor and submitted them to the website Backpage,” the release said, citing evidence presented during his trial.
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Jerome Edison was sentenced Wednesday to only 4 1/2 years in prison for transporting a woman into Connecticut to work as a prostitute. The victim told police that Edison pimps women in other places, but likes Connecticut “because he does not believe the police know what they are doing.” He told her that he has been pimping women since 2006
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Robert King, the leader of a Danbury, CT. targeted vulnerable young men suffering from addiction and mental illness was sentenced Wednesday to only four and a half years in prison. King testified against co-defendant Bruce Bemer in exchange for a sentence of 20 years in prison, suspended after he served four and a half years, and 35 years of probation.
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A Glastonbury, CT. millionaire Bruce Bemer will be trading in a life of luxury for at least 10 years in jail for his role in a local sex-trafficking ring. He was arrested and accused of trapping vulnerable young men in a predatory cycle of cocaine addiction, prostitution and threats of death. At least two of the 15 victims had developmental disabilities.
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But those men shared one commonality with the stereotypical trafficking victim, according to Krishna Patel, former deputy chief of the National Security and Major Crimes Unit in the District of Connecticut. Vulnerability is at the root of it,” Patel explained.
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Jerome Edison, 49, pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Hartford to a single count of human trafficking. Under his plea agreement, he’ll be sentenced to 10 years in prison, suspended after he serves 4 1/2 years, and five years of probation.
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At Wednesday’s Newington Rotary Club meeting, members lined up around a table and filled dozens of brown paper bags with personal hygiene items, snacks and Gatorade, to be distributed to victims of human trafficking working on the streets of Hartford.
Read More“The more light that shines on this modern-day form of slavery, the more children can be protected and the more hope for recovery for those who survive,” said Veronica Trudel,.
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A state law passed in 2016 to combat human trafficking has resulted in more arrests while raising local awareness of the often-invisible crime, which has been called modern-day slavery, experts say. Trafficking is one of the biggest challenges faced by law enforcement, and one that especially benefits from public awareness, said Krishna Patel, who worked with the U.S. attorney’s office for Connecticut on trafficking cases.
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A Hartford.CT. man convicted of trafficking minors for sex has been sentenced to serve 15 years in prison. Plus, as many as 50 people worked as prostitutes for him.
Read MoreSimon Hessler appeared Wednesday in Manchester Superior Court, where his case was transferred to Hartford Superior Court, which handles more serious matters. Charged last month with attempting to set up two days of “limitless sex” with a person he thought was a 10- to 12-year-old girl, Hessler was held on bail of $1 million for a court appearance set for Dec, 27.
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Like many victims of a Connecticut sex trafficking ring that preyed on troubled young men and teenage boys for more than 20 years, Samuel Marino never told his family or police about being coerced into sexual relations with much older men.
Read MoreAn Ellington man and Manchester hotel owner arrested on attempted sex trafficking charges allegedly had a “sex dungeon” on one of his properties, according to Connecticut State Police. Simon Hessler, 46, was arrested Tuesday after an undercover investigation into underage human sex trafficking.
Read MoreA Milton man accused of trafficking women for sex in four states has pleaded guilty in federal court. Duhamel Cassagnol, 30, is due to be sentenced Dec. 18 on charges of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion; engaging in a conspiracy to commit sex trafficking; and transporting an individual for prostitution in federal court in Boston.
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