TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey authorities took down two human trafficking rings, including one that was forcing children as young as 13 to have sex with adults for money, the state's top law enforcement official said Tuesday.
Seven people have been charged as a result of the operations, Attorney General Matt Platkin said. The indictments handed up in state superior court include harrowing details about children and others allegedly being forced into sexual encounters Essex County, which includes Newark, and Cumberland County, in the south of the state.
"There is no tolerance for the exploitation of anyone, especially in this dehumanizing way,” Platkin said in a statement.
From roughly last December until April, Khailah Meekins, 21, and Donte Barkley, 28, both of Newark, engaged in trafficking minors, according to the indictment. Platkin said the pair arranged for two 15-year-olds and a 13-year-old to have sexual encounters through a smartphone app after ads showing the children were posted online. The victims were then brought to hotels and short-term rentals where people paid to sexually assault them, the attorney general said.
Douglas Mitchell, an attorney for Barkley, said his client maintains his innocence and will fight the charges. Meekins' attorney didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
A 24-year-old Irvington man was indicted on assault charges in August in the Newark case. Platkin's office alleges that the man paid for sex with one of the minors.
In Cumberland County, Usiel Luna, 42, of Bridgeton, along with Jose Perez-Lopez, 40, Rosendo Vazquez-Hernandez, 35, and Yerson Puentes-Marquez, 28 all from Bridgeton, recruited people to work as dancers who were then “offered for commercial sex,” the attorney general said. From March 2022 through this September, the victims were brought to a house in Bridgeton, were told not to leave and were forced to engage in sex with “hundreds” of men each week, the indictment said.
Attorneys for Luna, Perez-Lopez and Vazquez-Hernandez didn't immediately respond to Tuesday requests seeking comment.
The indictments come two years after the creation of a human trafficking unit in the attorney general's office, Platkin said.