Human sex trafficking is as close as next door

Editor's note: This story is based on federal court evidence, interviews with victims, and interview transcripts. The Democrat and Chronicle is not naming the victims in the Stephen Jones case as they were the victims of sex crimes and one was also a minor at the time of the offenses.

The East High School student was only 16 when she was selling her body for sex.

Fate seems to have conspired to set her up: Her mother was a drug addict; her father physically and sexually abusive.

She did not keep the money from her transactions — thousands of dollars from dozens of men, typically between the ages of 30 and 60. Instead, she handed the cash over to the man she believed loved her, the same man who ensured that she had tattoos on her wrist and her back that told the world that she was, in fact, his.

He provided the security she lacked; she provided him with lots of money.

She wasn't alone. Instead, authorities allege, Stephen Jones had as many as 30 women working for him at different times, some underage, some addicts who never pocketed any of the cash they made through grueling prostitution. Jones supplied them the drugs they craved, and they returned time and time again to hotels from Buffalo to Rochester to Albany for sex with men who'd found their ads, purchased by Jones, on prostitution websites.

Called by one prosecutor the "worst sex trafficker" the Rochester region has witnessed, Jones, 30, is now in federal prison, sentenced in late December to 25 years.

A 2016 study by the Center for Court Innovation found that between 8,900 and 10,500 children, ages 13 to 17, are commercially exploited each year in this country. Several hundred children 12 and younger, a group not included in the study, also suffer commercial sexual abuse. Globally, the number of child victims is around one million, according to the International Labor Organization.

These statistics come from a major USA Today Network investigation on the commercial sexual exploitation of children that also found the number of identified victims in the U.S. is on the rise.

In our region many teenagers, their home lives disruptive and chaotic, find themselves empowered by the attention of a man like Jones, local activists say. The opioid crisis has also added another insidious element to the problem. And, while society is now starting to understand that prostitutes are often victims, the community still has more to do to disrupt the sex trafficking business, the activists say.

"It's this mindset that this doesn't happen here," said Celia McIntosh, who chairs the Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking. "Or if it happens, it happens 'over there.'"

But trafficking is as close as next door.

The prostitution ring Jones ran, detailed in hundreds of pages of federal court records, trial transcripts, and interviews obtained by the Democrat and Chronicle, is a window into the brutality of sex trafficking, especially when vulnerable teenagers are pulled under the sway of a figure like Jones.

"Stephen Jones is a predator," Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Marangola, one of the prosecutors in the case, wrote in court papers. "Jones sexually trafficked and abused women and children for his own commercial and financial gain. Jones beat his girls. Jones threatened his girls."

Marangola said that the 16-year-old victim was so sure Jones, then 26, loved her that "she had sex with approximately 100 men so (Jones) could wear nice shoes and flash large amounts of money on social media."

► More: Dozens of Rochester kids acknowledge they've been sold for sex

Jones' case is not an anomaly. There have been others in recent years. For instance:

• Local sex trafficker Thomas Cramer is in prison for pushing three underage girls into prostitution. He is serving a 30-year sentence.

• Scott Wilbert, who drove Cramer's prostitutes to the illegal rendezvous, apparently was not dissuaded by Cramer's incarceration. Federal prosecutors allege that Wilbert, a convicted sex offender, continued to engage in sex trafficking after Cramer went to prison. He is now jailed awaiting trial on child pornography charges.

• Robert Palermo, now serving 11 years for sex trafficking minors, tried while he was jailed to hire a hit man to "off" a 15-year-old girl — a victim he'd trafficked — because he expected her to be a witness against him.

McIntosh, the chair of the anti-trafficking coalition, said she hopes the community begins to grasp the pain inflicted on youth and women — and, less frequently, men — who become trafficking victims.

"I think everybody in the community needs to get on board," McIntosh said. "They need to say, 'This is a crime against humanity.' "

The 16-year-old who fell under Jones' pull wore two tattoos that told the world she was his: Jones' nickname of "Bless" was tattooed on her back, and on her wrist was "B.A.M.", an acronym for "by any means," which was one of Jones' favorite sayings.

Asked at trial, "Why did you get 'Bless' on your back," the girl answered, "Because he asked me to."

More: Who buys a child for sex? Otherwise ordinary men

Jones, who was in a sexual relationship with the underage teen, also convinced her to recruit other peers, court papers show. According to her testimony, she did so out of her affection for Jones; she received no extra money for the recruitment.

Once, she testified, she told Jones she did not want to be involved in prostitution any longer. She said he turned, angry, tried to push her down stairs, and "choked me up against the wall." Even from jail, Jones did not stop running his sex business. The 16-year-old East High student and another 16-year-old who also worked for him sent him their money while he was jailed on a gun charge, putting a total of $3,000 in his commissary account.

"Jones saw (the girl) as just another victim, another commodity he could sell over and over again for his own selfish enrichment," Marangola said in court papers.

"He chose to exploit and manipulate her. He told her he loved her and she believed him."

Sex trafficking also is not just an urban problem.

One of Jones' victims grew up in a middle-class household in Ontario County, and, while in college, became addicted to pain pills. That morphed into an addiction to cocaine.

After dropping out of school and meeting Kasandra Weeks, who was Jones' business partner and sometimes-girlfriend, the Ontario County woman agreed to prostitution in exchange for drugs.

Jones and Weeks moved the woman from cocaine to heroin, worsening her addiction and weakening her ability to break free.

Half of the victim's proceeds from prostitution went to Jones, and the other half to Weeks.

"Essentially she was just working as a slave," said Peter Uzarowski, the Department of Homeland Security agent who was the lead investigator on the case.

Jones and Weeks took the woman's cellphone and used her credit cards and what money she had to pay for their own phones, car payments and rent. Prosecutors said she was kept "dope sick" so she would continue in prostitution.

Asked at trial why she agreed to give all of the money to Jones and Weeks, she said, "Because I was addicted to drugs and I ... couldn't see anything past the next high."

Once, she said, she found a client charming and kind, and wanted to spend time with him because he "just talked to me like I was a real person."

"How did that make you feel?" she was asked.

"Happy," she answered. "Like I was having a normal conversation."

While she was with the man, Weeks and Jones blasted her with text messages, telling her she needed to leave and get to more clients.

She told them that she planned to stay with the man for the full hour. "He was just a nice person — like we were just hanging out and I just wanted to be normal for an hour," the woman testified.

When she returned to Jones and Weeks, who were waiting for her in a car, Weeks grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the vehicle. They then drove her to a remote area, forced her out of the car and drove away.

She testified that she was "somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. There's not even streetlights or anything. I have no idea where I am."

Later, they returned. Laughing and joking, they pulled her back into the car.

"Where did they take you?" she was asked at trial.

To another client, the woman answered.

"I think that's why they didn't leave me," she said.

The investigation into Jones' prostitution ring started with a report of a possible trafficking victim who was meeting men at the Red Roof Inn in Henrietta. That 19-year-old told investigators of a teenager — the 16-year-old East High student — who was also working as a prostitute, according to agent Uzarowski.

That same day, in December 2013, Uzarowski and investigators with the FBI and Rochester police located the 16-year-old, who said she now worked for Jones after previously working for another man. She said she made $100 per client, and all the money went to Jones.

The investigation ballooned from there, as more women and teens working for Jones were found. They told investigators about how Jones created prostitution ads for them, using photos of other women. Jones posted the ads on backpage.com, a site where prostitution is directly and obliquely advertised and a site that many activists contend is a refuge for individuals trafficking in teenage girls.

One adult woman who worked briefly for Jones continued receiving calls and texts from him after she refused to be a prostitute for him, court papers say. She told investigators that he said he was going to "body her," which she took as a sign he planned to kill her.

While in jail before his trial, authorities say, Jones grew so irate that the heroin-addicted Ontario County woman was trying to break away from him that he plotted to have her kidnapped and brought back into the fold.

Jones and Weeks were arrested in 2015 and accused of trafficking teens and adult women. Weeks pleaded guilty in late 2015 and is awaiting sentencing.

After a 10-day trial, a jury in September convicted Jones of five sex-trafficking counts, found him not guilty of one, and was unable to reach verdicts on three. He is expected to appeal the verdicts.

At sentencing, U.S. District Judge David Larimer said the trial "testimony was rife with evidence of how Mr. Jones badgered (victims), coerced them, transported them."

Jones never seemed to have enough women to meet the demand.

"Mr. Jones and Ms. Weeks consistently were on the hunt to find younger girls and women because they were in higher demand," Larimer said.

Once they escaped from prostitution, some of Jones' victims were helped by the Safe Harbour program at the Rochester-based Center for Youth. The program helps sexually exploited youth with counseling, medical care, education and any other needs.

The girls and women, in this case, have found ways to break from their past turmoil and the hold of men like Jones, according to Marangola and Center for Youth officials.

"Every one of them has moved on with their life ..." Marangola said.

Some have graduated from college, and some are attending college, like the Ontario County woman who is now studying a field of medicine.

More: Rochester to fight human trafficking through community policing

Exploited: Inside the dark world of child trafficking

But others — runaways, young addicts, teens looking for a reprieve from continual discord at home — are still being lured into prostitution.

In 2017 nearly 300 youth were referred to the Center for Youth program as possible sexual exploitation victims. And, according to Center for Youth officials, the demand for services continues to grow.

"The reason we have young people who are trapped is our system makes people vulnerable," said Valerie Douglas, the center's director of counseling and runaway and homeless youth services. Child protective systems are overburdened; schools aren't always equipped to recognize trafficking victims; and the societal perspective, while evolving, still can look at the teens as criminals and not young casualties of the hands they were dealt.

"It's not that young people wake up one morning and say, 'I'm going to go away with some stranger for sex,' " Douglas said.

GCRAIG@Gannett.com

Includes reporting by the USA TODAY Network.

Need help?

You can contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at humantraffickinghotline.org; (888) 373-7888; TTY: 711; text: 233733

Identifying victims

Local activists say citizens can help identify trafficking victims. Among the telltale signals are:

• Fearfulness and anxiety.

• Unwillingness to discuss living arrangements.

• Rarely has money of her or his own.

• May be malnourished and unhealthy.

Many institutions are the first to see trafficking victims, and can also help steer them from danger and to services, said Rochester Regional Coalition Against Human Trafficking Chairwoman Celia McIntosh.

For instance, "85 percent of victims often come in contact with health care providers," said McIntosh, a nurse practitioner.

Suspicions can be relayed to law enforcement; to the coalition at (585) 483-0084 or its website of http://www.rrcaht.org; or to the nonprofit anti-trafficking Polaris Project at its website https://polarisproject.org/

Gary Craig is a member of the Democrat and Chronicle’s Watchdog team, and focuses on public safety and criminal justice. He has worked at Rochester newspapers since 1990, covering City Hall, politics and federal courts before joining the newspaper’s investigative team. He has won state and national investigative writing awards. He is married with two daughters.