Bar owner indicted on sex trafficking charges
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/new...afficking.html
February 12, 2010 1:52 PM
By JEREMY ROEBUCK, The Monitor
McALLEN — A Mission bar owner has been indicted on multiple counts of conspiracy, harboring illegal immigrants and sex trafficking, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Beleal Garcia Gonzalez, 34, last month on allegations he arranged for three Honduran minors to be smuggled into the United States to work as prostitutes in his nightclub — Bar El Paraiso, on Bentsen Palm Drive just south of 5 Mile Line, north of Palmview.
Two women — Garcia’s girlfriend and a bartender at his club — also face charges in the indictment handed down Tuesday. If convicted of conspiracy or harboring illegal immigrants, the women could each face up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Garcia faces up to a 15-year sentence on his three additional sex trafficking counts.
“Because human traffickers prey on the most vulnerable, ICE will continue to aggressively identify and assist all victims … and apprehend and present for prosecution those allegedly responsible,” said Jerry Robinette, head of the ICE field office in San Antonio.
ICE agents initially received a tip in January that a home north of Palmview was housing several undocumented minors who were being forced to have sex for money.
Investigators followed two of the girls — who were clad in miniskirts and high heels on a rainy and cold January morning — back to a stash house near the intersection of Mile 3 Road North and Moorefield Road, ICE Special Agent Anson Luna testified during a Jan. 20 hearing in the case.
“All three pretty much had a consistent story,” he said. “They were approached in their home country by a couple and promised a better life working in a restaurant in the United States.”
But once the girls arrived here, Garcia forced them to work in his bar for $20 a day until they paid off their smuggling fees ranging from $4,000 to $4,500, Luna said. Their duties allegedly included having sex with customers for money.
Garcia’s girlfriend, Maria Luisa Vasquez Garcia, 19, and the charged bartender, Elizabeth Mendez Vasquez, 22, kept the girls under a tight watch during their off hours at the stash house, according to a probable cause affidavit filed against them.
All three remained in federal custody.
Garcia’s attorney did not return calls for comment Thursday.