WSJ SPECIAL REPORT– Jennifer Gross had warned her 12-year-old daughter about the potential dangers of socializing with strangers online, but said the message had often fallen on deaf ears. Now the preteen understands the concern. Since mid-March, the daughter has received several flirtatious messages from accounts that appeared to be from adult men on Instagram, Mrs. Gross said.
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PHILADELPHIA — On May 19, ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Philadelphia and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced that a man pleaded guilty to charges of manufacturing and attempted manufacturing of child pornography. These charges arose from the defendant’s sexual abuse of an infant and his videotaping of that abuse. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 200 years’ imprisonment and a mandatory minimum term of 15 years.
This investigation was conducted under HSI’s Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators. Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 19,000 individuals for crimes against children
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In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania a federal judge is allowing a sex trafficking plaintiff to continue with claims against the hotel franchise Marriott. The claim states that the three hotels in Philadelphia failed to stop activities. The federal judge denied the hotels efforts to dismiss the claim
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Altoona, Pennsylvania is a hot spring for human trafficking. Every two minutes, a child is exploited in the sex industry. 300,00 children are sold every year. The month of January is human trafficking awareness month and in Altoona, they have red sand covering sidewalks to raise awareness. The Red Sandy Project is a national movement that symbolizes people “who fall through the cracks of society”. People don’t know human trafficking is happening because they are not aware of the red flags. In 2018 police arrested two people in the first case of human trafficking in this region. Both face 40 charges. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if you notice red flags.
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Ishi Woney, 24, of New York, trafficked Corinna Slusser, 19, and others, including a minor and a mentally disabled woman with the IQ of a third-grader, according to court papers.
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Two South Jersey men, Barry “Bear” Schiff, 52, of Galloway, and Kenneth J. Crowell, 35, of Blackwood, ran an organized sex trafficking ring stretching into Pennsylvania, coercing and forcing six young women into sex work and collecting the profits. One victim told police that Schiff threatened to “chop her up into little pieces and throw her in the river” when she said she didn’t want to work for him anymore.
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In 2018, 127 cases of human trafficking were reported in Pennsylvania, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. At the 2019 Rural Human Trafficking Summit hosted by the Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health at Penn State Tuesday, advocates said that to target and stop trafficking, the public needs to first recognize the situation.
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In Doylestown, Pennsylvania victims, law enforcers and anti-human trafficking groups describe the uphill battle they face in seeking justice.
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Several locations in the Pittsburgh area were raided in an investigation of an alleged human trafficking ring that authorities say was being run through massage parlors in Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
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Collins was convicted on four counts of trafficking individuals, three counts of involuntary servitude, one count of rape, one count of aggravated assault, and one count of strangulation. It’s the first-ever conviction involving trafficking of adults in the city.
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The arrests were made as part of an undercover sting, the second this year in the Youngstown, PA. area. The investigation was by the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force led to the arrests of 16 in all.
Read MoreA woman arrested in Allentown last week on prostitution charges is also facing accusastions in a three-year-old child abuse case.
Allentown police arrested Lisette M. Mercado at a Super 8 motel last Friday during a prostitution sting. Authorities discovered an arrest warrant issued by the Easton Police Department in March 2016 against the 26-year-old, who was accused of drunkenly punching her 2-year-old daughter in the face.
Eight alleged Reading, Pa. gang members were indicted on federal sex trafficking charges. Authorities said they conspired to recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, obtain, and maintain by any means females to engage in commercial sex acts. Some of the victims, they said, were under the age of 18.
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Human trafficking is taking the country by storm. In Pennsylvania, law enforcement officials are finding many of the victims are local.
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Lawsuits filed Wednesday on behalf of two young women who had been forced into prostitution when they were teenagers say three Philadelphia hotels turned a blind eye to human trafficking and profited from the alleged victims being used as sex slaves.
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Investigators say Xu, of Mt. Pleasant, owned four Tokyo massage parlors where the prostitution was happening and Chen, of Monroeville, would pick up young women at a bus stop and take them to the parlors.
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Children and youths in foster in Central Pennsylvania may find themselves targets for sex traffickers, according to Rhonda Hendrickson with the YWCA of Greater Harrisburg, PA.
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A Lehigh County man accused of pimping out a half-dozen heroin-addicted women in York County and elsewhere has been sentenced to a decade in federal prison. Willie James Johnson appeared in Harrisburg’s federal court on Wednesday, Feb. 13, where he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay a $5,000 special assessment fee under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, court records state.
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To mark January as Human Trafficking Awareness Month, officials from Pennsylvania DOT, the Department of Human Services, Pennsylvania State Police, and Governor Tom Wolf’s administration held a press conference to highlight PennDOT’s work. With the start of the new year, the commonwealth is working to roll out a law aimed at protecting sexually exploited children.
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Human Trafficking is prevalent, unfortunately, even in Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, PA – Executives from the Pennsylvania departments of Transportation (PennDOT) and Human Services (DHS), Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) joined by advocates and a human trafficking survivor today to discuss efforts to combat human trafficking and educate the public on the issue.
Read MoreIn Greensburg, PA. a woman will serve up to 20 years in prison for selling sexual encounters with a 3-year-old girl. Rebecca Shadle was sentenced Thursday after she pleaded guilty in September to trafficking of a minor for sexual purposes, child endangerment, aggravated indecent assault and conspiracy.
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The mother of a missing Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania college student, who is an alleged victim of sex trafficking, said she’s holding out hope her daughter is still alive and being held against her will, adding that the 20-year-old “doesn’t have the street knowledge to survive out there.” “Woney engaged in a vile form of exploitation, using force and other coercion to compel young women to engage in paid sex for his enrichment,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said.
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His accusers said Mull claimed them as his property after using his charm to lure the unwitting victims into a dark, violent world of sexual exploitation.
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The committee includes leaders of organizations that fight modern slavery, academics and representatives of the trucking, bus, rail, aviation, maritime and port industries.
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Human trafficking is a well disguised terror that happens closer to home than some may believe. Since the beginning of 2018, Montgomery County has had 20 reported incidents of children being trafficked.
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A family’s hunt for their missing child just took a dramatic and disturbing turn after an arrest of an aspiring rapper from the Bronx. Back in September 2017, Corinna Slusser, 19, traveled to New York City from her hometown of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
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A Chambersburg, Pa., man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for transporting a minor for the purposes of committing commercial sex acts.
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A child in Pennsylvania can be married at any age, with parental consent or if a court decides marriage is in the child’s best interest. A child spouse, however, cannot file for divorce, sign binding contracts such as housing agreements, or take other legal action, because a child remains a minor under the law.
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A South Jersey man was convicted on charges that he ran a human-trafficking ring in which he profited as two women performed sex acts for money at Pennsylvania hotels.
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There, the girls — ages now 16 and 13 — were assaulted multiple times in a bed by a man who knew their mother, they testified in Superior Court on Tuesday.
Read MorePolice charged 12 sex workers and 27 of their patrons during a nationally coordinated sting operation meant to reduce sex trafficking, according to Pittsburgh police.
Read MoreCoach Mike Tomlin always brings his passion for football to Steelers training camp at Saint Vincent College, but Friday he brought something extra — his personal passion for fighting the scourge of modern day slavery.
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The teenager told investigators her friend handed her over to a 19-year-old for sex in the parking lot of a Rite Aid store in East McKeesport.
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Two people are in custody on dozens of felony charges as part of what Altoona police have said is an ongoing investigation into a possible child pornography, child prostitution and methamphetamine ring
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A bill to protect and aid children who have been sexually exploited is making its way through the Pennsylvania Senate.
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Authorities say 34-year-old Oscar Carter and 27-year-old Shelby Summer Brown, both from Tulsa, Okla., have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on multiple sex trafficking charges, including sex trafficking of a child.
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A South Philadelphia man faces a maximum sentence of 99 years in prison after pleading no contest Thursday to 12 charges related to human trafficking.
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After more than a year of being stalled, a bill designed to protect victims of human trafficking is moving through the state …
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