A Sheriff’s Office in Florida have arrested more than 200 people including a teacher and three Disney employees during a weeklong human trafficking operation.
Operation ‘Traffic Stop 2’
Officials in Polk County said they had successfully arrested 219 people during the sting, named ‘Traffic Stop 2’.
Sheriff Grady Judd announced the results of the operation at a press conference, saying that 83 suspects were arrested for soliciting a prostitute.
The investigation identified 21 possible human trafficking victims out of the 119 prostitutes that were also arrested.
Two people, Maria Guzman, 36, and Freddy Escalona, 30, were arrested on human trafficking and deriving proceeds form prostitution charges.
Escalona is said to have forced a woman into prostitution after her loaned her $2,200 to fix her vehicle and was unable to pay him back.
More appointments
Police said he drove the victim to an undisclosed location and was taken into custody when he told officers he had ‘several’ women that worked for him.
Officials said that he forced the woman to continue to be a prostitute well after her debt had been paid.
Guzman is said to have been organizing appointments for two young women that she was prostituting and taking between sixty and seventy percent of the money.
According to Sheriff Judd, Guzman had met two women online and convinced them to move from Minnesota to Orlando to work in construction.
Judd said: ‘She didn’t define what the construction meant. They were gonna construct sexual encounters.’
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Others who had been arrested included Russell Rogers from Winter Haven, Florida, who was accused of negotiating to have sex with a prostitute.
Rogers, who is married with three children, is also the athletic director at Vanguard School and a teacher at Auburndale High School.
School reacts
In a statement to Fox13, Polk County Schools said: ‘We’re disappointed to learn that one of our employees was engaging in this kind of behavior.
‘These charges don’t involve students, and Rogers was not on duty as a teacher, but this kind of conduct still has no place in our school system.’
Sheriff Judd added that he also negotiated to have sex with a woman without using protection.
Judd finished: ‘I can’t believe we would want somebody like this around our children.’
Meanwhile three Disney employees, Kenneth Green, Marquis Nixon and Carlos Ro were also arrested in the operation for soliciting prostitutes.
Judd said: ‘What would an Op be, if we didn’t arrest someone that was employed by Disney.’
According to police, Green works as a training coordinator, while Nixon works as security and Ro as a custodian.
