[ilbegone]

Survivor's tale of sexual captivity grips crowd

January 11, 2010

By PAUL LAROCCO
The Press-Enterprise

Maria Suarez has replayed her story over and over again to others.

About being enslaved to a witch doctor nearly 50 years older, and repeatedly raped inside his Azusa home from 1976 to 1981. About the day she learned a neighbor had clubbed her captor to death with a table leg.

But many gathered Monday to hear her speak on National Day of Human Trafficking hadn't heard Suarez's full ordeal -- and audibly gasped when she mentioned that she spent 22 years in prison for hiding the murder weapon.

"I have not wasted a minute of my life," the now-49-year-old Suarez told more than 100 attendees inside San Bernardino's Inland Regional Training Center, referring to the time since her 2004 release. "I don't think anything can stop me."

Suarez was the keynote speaker at an event organized by San Bernardino County's Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation. Since forming last March, the unit has sought to shift the view of child prostitutes from criminals to victims.

"This is truly a non-traditional role for prosecutors," said Chief Deputy District Attorney Karen Bell, whose department leads the coalition. "Our focus is on prevention and education, as well as suppression."

The problem of children, primarily runaways, being forced into providing sex for sale is heightened in San Bernardino County's west end of Ontario and Montclair, where juvenile prostitution arrests have increased more than five-fold over the last 11 years.

Prosecutors have joined with local police departments, probation officers, public defenders and social service providers to brainstorm ways top provide more options for young victims and push for stronger punishments for pimps.

District Attorney Mike Ramos said he'd like to one day see a safe house specifically for minors forced into the sex trade.

"It's us that need to be there," Ramos said. "So they can fall into our arms and not the arms of a pimp."

Suarez, who lives in Rialto, provided an emotionally charged example of how vulnerable people are targeted.

Not two weeks after Suarez and her family legally settled in the Los Angeles County community of Sierra Madre from Mexico, she was offered a job she believed to be cleaning and answering phones. It turned out she was sold for $200 to a 62-year-old man who practiced witchcraft.

A day into her captivity, she was stripped naked and made to beg for her clothes before being knocked out and raped. It began five years of abuse, she told the audience.

"Where could I go or what could I do?" Suarez recounted, noting the man's threats to kill her family. "Nothing."

In 1981, a neighbor killed the man, and because Suarez admitted to cleaning and hiding the table leg used, she was sentenced to 25 years to life. She was ultimately paroled in 2003, but spent another year in custody fighting deportation.