Seven people ran N.J. human trafficking rings, forcing minors and women into sex work, authorities say
In one trafficking ring, suspects lied to victims to lure them to a brothel, prosecutors said. In the other, suspects advertised sex with minors, according to prosecutors.
Seven people used a system of violence to force minors and women into having sex with people for money in two separate human trafficking rings in northern and southern New Jersey, prosecutors said Tuesday, in what the state attorney general called “truly heinous crimes.”
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, whose office has pushed to increase awareness of human trafficking in the state, said the motivation for investigations that led to the indictment of the seven suspects was simple.
“We do this work for the victims. For the survivors,” Platkin said at a news conference. “For those who deserve justice and dignity and who deserve to be treated like human beings.”
The human trafficking rings, based in Essex and Cumberland Counties, both involved threatening victims with physical harm and transporting them to locations where they were coerced into being sexually assaulted by people who paid the rings’ operators, Platkin said.
Six of the defendants were indicted Monday, and the seventh suspect had been indicted in August, Platkin said. The seven face charges that include human trafficking, human trafficking of a minor, drug distribution, and aggravated sexual assault, Platkin said.
Attempts to reach attorneys for the seven were unsuccessful.
Between March 2022 and September 2024, Usiel Luna, 42, and coconspirators Jose Perez-Lopez, 40, Rosendo Vazquez-Hernandez, 35, and Yerson Puentes-Marquez, 28, all of Bridgeton, brought in new groups of women every week to a brothel in Bridgeton, where the victims were forced to engage in sex acts with men for money, prosecutors said.
New victims were picked up every week from Queens, N.Y. and Paterson, N.J., and brought to the Bridgeton residence, where Luna threatened them with violence to keep them from trying to leave, prosecutors said.
The group recruited women by lying to them that they would be working as dancers, prosecutors said, only to be taken to the Laurel Street home, where they were forced to be sexually assaulted for the suspects’ profit.
The victims were forced to have sex with hundreds of men during the week, prosecutors said.
Additionally, the group sold methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana, prosecutors said, and law enforcement seized more than $50,000 in cash from the brothel and Luna’s home.
Luna, who prosecutors said was a supervisor in the trafficking ring, faces five counts of first-degree human trafficking and related crimes, said J. Stephen Ferketic, director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice.
Perez-Lopez, Vazquez-Hernandez, and Puentes-Marquez all face four counts of first-degree human trafficking and related crimes, Ferketic said.
Each man faces a maximum sentence of 20 years to life in prison on the first-degree charges, he said.
Prosecutors said Khailah Meekins, 21, and Donte Barkley, 28, both of Newark, ran the Essex County human trafficking ring, advertising sex with three teen victims — two 15-year-olds and one 13-year-old — on phone apps and online ads.
The duo included nude photos of the minors in the ads, and brought their victims to short-term rentals and hotels, where the teens were sexually assaulted by the pair’s clients, prosecutors said. Meekins and Barkley would control the teens by threatening them and beating them, in some cases pulling their hair, hitting them with an extension cord, punching, stomping, and biting them, prosecutors said.
Another person, Richard Johnson, 24, of Irvington, N.J., was charged with aggravated sexual assault for paying to sexually assault one of the minors, prosecutors said.
The arrests and indictments of the seven people and freeing their victims from lives filled with violence and sexual exploitation were victories, Platkin said. But the attorney general urged residents to stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity, saying human trafficking is a scourge that pervades every corner of the state.
“We fight for everyone who has not only survived the horrors of human trafficking, but also those who are working to rebuild their lives one step and one day at a time,” Platkin said.