SAPD: LOCAL WOMAN CHARGED WITH TRAFFICKING ASYLUM SEEKERS
October 6, 2019
Megan Ball
MSN
Jeaneth Acosta, 44, was charged with Trafficking of Persons after police say she promised to help asylum seekers and then tried to force them into sex work.
On August 21, an attorney representing one of Acosta's victims contacted police.
At the attorney's office, the 38-year-old woman told police that she lived in Honduras and that Acosta told her she could help her get into the United States, according to an arrest affidavit.
Acosta reportedly told the woman to go to a border town and turn herself in to authorities.
After following Acosta's instructions, Acosta became the woman's sponsor and bonded her out of a detention center.
The woman took a bus from a detention facility in Denver, Colorado to San Antonio to live with Acosta. She told police that she lived with Acosta from February 2 to April 14.
The affidavit states that one day Acosta drove the woman to an H-E-B parking lot and told her to get into the car of a man who was waiting nearby.
The victim told police that the man, later identified as Domingo, drove the woman to an unknown motel and had sex with her, paying her $130 afterward.
Domingo drove the woman back to the H-E-B parking lot to be picked up by Acosta.
When the woman asked Acosta why she would make her sleep with Domingo, Acosta told her that she would do "whatever [Acosta] told her to do."
Acosta then took $100 of the $130 Domingo paid the woman.
According to the affidavit, Acosta eventually called the police on the woman and she went to live elsewhere.
Police interviewed Domingo, who admitted to sleeping with the woman and paying her for sex.
During the investigation, another woman who may have been a victim of human trafficking was identified.
The other woman, who lived in North Carolina, told police that Acosta helped her get into the United States and that she lived with Acosta for some time as well.
She stated that Acosta also tried to get her to have sex with an unknown man but that she refused.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/sapd-local-woman-charged-with-trafficking-asylum-seekers/ar-AAIktim?ocid=spartandhp
;
Message from Executive Director Laura A. Ahearn: Please visit our website at www.crimevictimscenter.org for news, information and resources in your community.
Follow on:
Comments are closed.