“The FBI is the most sophisticated law enforcement agency in the world, pursuing the most dangerous criminals.”
“When all American teenagers are forced to become sex slaves, it’s either, ‘Yes, you’re going to do it,’ or ‘No, you’re going to die.'”
“The lives of these girls meant nothing to him other than a dollar.”
“The bureau mobilizes.”
“Just the way these people were treated is beyond something that you could put in a movie.”
“I’m thinking in my head, is this my last blink I’m ever going to take? Is this, this my last deep breath I’m ever going to have?”
“June 17th, 2004.”
“Police officers burst into a motel room on the west side of Hartford. They’re looking for a notorious criminal that they suspect he’s running a prostitution ring.”
“For you, do you?”
“He’s been kind of unfortunately a criminal icon, if you will.”
“Do you understand your rights?”
“Officers arrest the pimp on a curfew violation and haul him into the lockup.”
“But police miss something. An 18-year-old prostitute has been hiding in the bathroom. As soon as the officers leave, she escapes.”
“She had no money, no clothes, no home, and she just wanted to get bus fare to go back to her Vermont hometown. And the only way she could get that extra bit of cash was to walk the street and turn a trick.”
“The young blonde staggers onto Wethersfield Avenue.”
“Hi, how you doing? Uh, you looking for a date?”
“Out of nowhere, undercover cops surround the car. They slap cuffs onto her tiny wrists and arrest her as part of a sting in Hartford’s Colt Park. It’s a hotbed of prostitution.”
“Obviously, you can see the condom wrappers and the used condoms on the ground. They just take it off and dump it. A lot of times, you’ll see, uh, needles and crack pipes also.”
“Detective Deborah Skates, an 8-year veteran of the Hartford Police Department’s Vice and Narcotics Squad, processes the girl.”
“Detective Skates knows virtually every hooker and pimp in town, but she’s never seen this one before. The girl is beautiful underneath her battered appearance, and the detective’s maternal instinct kicks in.”
“It was very obvious that she was very high on heroin at the time, and I really felt if I didn’t intervene and she went back to the streets, she would probably be dead.”
“Call me when you’re ready to talk.”
“Desperate for help, the girl shows up at the Hartford police station and introduces herself as Gwen. At first, she’s too scared to open up.”
“Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
“But once the shy teenager starts talking, it becomes clear that she’s no average prostitute.”
“Giving me drugs and then selling me off to bed and beating me.”
“She tells Detective Skates a story so horrific it almost doesn’t seem plausible.”
“You got to understand, this is a young girl who first thing out of her mouth told me that she had been kidnapped, raped, turned into a heroin addict, and forced into prostitution.”
“Where you, Gwen’s ordeal begins less than a year earlier in the beautiful state of Vermont. Like many typical teens, Gwen is having trouble getting along with her mom.”
“They decide it’s a good idea if Gwen spends the summer in Hartford with her aunt.”
“Gwen packs her things, never imagining she won’t be back. The family did not know what the aunt was into in Hartford, and the aunt was a prostitute in Hartford and had been working for Brian Forbes.”
“42-year-old Brian Forbes. He’s a bail bondsman and bodybuilder. At 6’5″ tall, he’s an imposing figure. When Gwen came to visit her aunt, he had saw her and wanted to meet her, and he forced her aunt into introducing them.”
“Forbes quickly begins romancing Gwen, taking her to dinner and buying her presents. Gwen is hungry for stability in her life, and the relationship moves quickly. Just one month after their courtship begins, Brian invites her to move in with him. She has no idea that the man she thinks is her boyfriend is really part of Hartford’s secretive, seamy underworld.”
“She was exactly what he was looking for. She was naive, she was young, she was blonde, she was Caucasian, she was moving to a town where she didn’t have her bearings, she was completely vulnerable. She was going to live with him at his residence which we’re headed to right now. That’s really when the nightmare began for her.”
“Who’s she?”
“That’s my girlfriend.”
“They literally walked in the door of his home, and there was a female standing there, and she was actually introduced to her as Brian’s girlfriend. That’s when she realized something was not correct.”
“Literally at that point, she was taken into a bedroom and he actually raped her. That was the first night. He shot her up with heroin. Several of his friends came to the house and had raped her, and then the next day, he started putting her out to calls.”
“Gwen claims that Forbes held her captive and forced her into having sex with johns.”
“Unlike regular prostitutes who choose to sell their bodies and may get a piece of the profit, Gwen had no say in the matter. Her choice was to cooperate or die. With her all-American blonde good looks, Gwen is immediately a hot commodity, known on the streets as a ‘snow bunny.'”
“It’s a term, Molly, a former sex slave who asked to have her identity disguised, is familiar with.”
“White girls are more expensive and make more money. The girl next door, the cheerleader, they’re harder to come across.”
“Molly’s story is remarkably similar to Gwen’s. She was snared in the sex slavery business after running away from home.”
“We weren’t a broken home, but we weren’t the Brady Bunch. I rebelled once, that was it.”
“That rebellion changed her life forever. A friend’s boyfriend pretended to care for her, then literally locked her in a room.”
“And I walked to the back room with him, and as I was walking, I noticed all the doors were closed, and all the doors had locks on the outsides of them, like padlocks. He pushes me in the room, and he asks me if I’ve ever had sex before. And I started laughing. ‘Okay, stop playing, you know, let me out.'”
“He goes, ‘I’m really a pimp, and I’m here to keep you from ever leaving this house again. You’re going to be my whore.'”
“Over the next hours and days, Detective Skates learns even more details about what Gwen has endured. The story is so outrageous that Detective Skates isn’t sure it’s true.”
“Then Gwen tells the detective about another victim, an 18-year-old named Alicia. Alicia is in jail for shoplifting. Detective Skates pulls her out for an interview and can’t believe her ears.”
“I was trying to get away from you.”
“I knew Gwen and Alicia never had the opportunity to speak to each other, so I knew when I started interviewing her and she’s telling me this exact same story, I’m like, ‘Wow, something’s going on here.'”
“Detective Skates realizes she may have stumbled onto a sex slavery ring, a federal offense, right in wealthy Connecticut. She approaches the US Attorney’s office, who rushes to set up a multi-agency task force. They include the federal agency that deals with human trafficking: the FBI.”
“Prostitution is a state crime in which a woman sells her body for money, and human trafficking of women is a crime in which a pimp forces or coerces a woman to commit sex acts for money.”
“Special Agent Christine Grespino, a 19-year veteran of the bureau, is well aware that up to 300,000 children are prostituted in the United States.”
“And finds the hardcore evidence they’ve been looking for. It’s a manual credit card imprint. The credit card slip, the receipt, would go into the top, and it would…”
“Located within here is the notation ‘Paris Enterprises Group,’ and that would be the notation on the credit card receipt that were being charged for for the sexual services.”
“What Paris thought was a smooth business move turns out to be his undoing.”
“Seizing that black briefcase, that was like seizing the holy grail. That was a huge, huge break in our case.”
“On March 16th, 2006, Dennis Paris, Brian Forbes, and eight associates are indicted on 56 counts, including sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.”
“Sergeant McKe and Detective Skates arrest Brian Forbes.”
“I personally chose to take him into custody. It was something that I felt I needed to do personally.”
“Hands above your head!”
“I actually took him out at gunpoint. I said basically, ‘You like beating on women? Try beating on me.'”
“The first phone calls I made were to Gwen and Alicia, and I had the pleasure of telling them that everybody was in custody.”
“Once Ramdi and Forbes are in custody, investigators learn about more victims, some barely out of puberty.”
“Ninth graders. When the johns were shown pictures of these ninth graders in their yearbook, they flipped out. It just completely busted up the fantasy of who they were having sex with. They were little kids who were dressed up to look like something else and act like something else.”
“I’m angry. I’m angry that they would be victimized like that by these pimps, and I’m angry that somebody’s going to pay $175 to $225 to have sex with a 14-year-old.”
“Our adopted daughters that come from similar backgrounds and, you know, but for the grace of God, as I said, you know, you never know. You never know. So, yeah, it’s not an easy thing. It’s not an easy thing.”
“Sex trafficking of a minor is added to the list of charges against Paris and Forbes. In 2007, Brian Forbes pleads guilty and is sentenced to 13 years in prison. He’s ordered to pay $16,000 restitution to the victims.”
“Dennis Paris chooses to fight it out at trial.”
“When I came to Paris, his arrogance was, ‘Take me to court, they’ll never have the guts to testify.'”
“But Gwen, Alicia, and two minors do face Paris in court.”
“They were looking at me, and the looks on their faces were just, ‘Save me.’ The defense attorney saw them looking at me and turned and said, ‘She can’t help you in here.'”
“Their ordeal is worth it. After 3 hours of deliberation, the jury finds Dennis Paris guilty on all counts. He’s sentenced to 30 years in prison without parole and is ordered to pay $46,000 in restitution.”
“It felt good. It felt really good. That was, um, that was definitely the highlight of my career. There’s no doubt about it. There’s no doubt about it.”
“Both Gwen and Alicia have moved on with their lives and become mothers. Molly’s pimp is still on the streets. She worries about running into him again, but is committed to changing her life.”
“I still have a lot to face, but my biggest dream is to catch the man that did this to me and educate people, and hopefully put the end to this bad demand of the sex trafficking.”
“It’s a dream shared by the FBI and those who put Ramdi behind bars.”
“Most of the cases that I’ve worked on have involved people’s finances or something was stolen from them. The thing that was stolen from these people was their dignity.”
“To do what I do, that, that’s nothing compared to the courage it took for these young ladies to live through this and survive and come out the other end. That’s, to me, that’s what real courage is all about.”
