Traffickers

I am a 17-year-old student who is responding to the article, "Glen Burnie an gets 10 years for child sex trafficking"(Baltimore Crime Beat blog, May 11). From what I have read, many details were included but some questions seemed to still be unanswered. For example, was the 12- year-old victim abducted, or did she willingly go along with the suspect? I also wonder how long the young girl was missing before police were contacted. After reading this article it made me think, what would make a 43 year old man stoop so low and do something like this to a minor?

Anne Arundel County officials are increasing enforcement efforts in the Laurel area in hopes of curbing prostitution and sex trafficking. The announcement of the crackdown comes after two arrests this week of men suspected of peddling teenagers for sex while holding them against their will at Laurel hotels. Officials said they hope the effort — dubbed "Operation Escape," which seeks cooperation from hotel and motel operators, with the threat of other county agencies descending on them if they won't help — will net results.

A federal charge of sex trafficking of a minor was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore against a man initially charged in Anne Arundel County with holding a 12-year-old girl as a prostitute, and supporting documents allege he threatened her. The girl told officers with the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force that Derwin Smith, 42, took her to a big vacant house he promised would be hers if she worked for him, and then brought her...

Anne Arundel County police have charged a 42-year-old Glen Burnie man with human trafficking and selling the sexual services of a 12-year-old Washington girl who had been reported missing nearly two weeks ago. Derwin Samuel Smith, who lives in an apartment in the first block of McGuirk Drive in Glen Burnie, was ordered jailed Wednesday in lieu of $100,000 bail to await trial. Police were involved in the case as part of the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force. They said the girl was reported missing May 25 from Washington and was believed to be working as a prostitute.

A Millersville man pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that involved luring a 16-year-old from her Ohio home to take her to a "party" and then forcing her to work as a prostitute in his apartment. Craig Allen Corey II, 23, of Chillicothe, Ohio, who had been stationed at Fort Meade, pleaded guilty to human trafficking charges, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Corey was charged last April, after Anne Arundel County police raided his apartment in the 600 block of Millwright Court.

He graduated from a Catholic high school and attended college; she joined the Army. But somewhere along the line, police believe, Shaun Henderson and his girlfriend began crisscrossing the Baltimore region as a fledgling pimp and his prostitute. On Feb. 4, in the area for an appointment at a Towson hotel, Henderson, 30, was found shot to death in his 2000 Cadillac Escalade parked in North Baltimore's Greenspring neighborhood. Baltimore police say at least two women were seen running from the vehicle.

T he heart-rending images of injured and frightened children after Haiti's devastating earthquake last month no doubt stirred the compassion of many Americans, including the Baptist evangelicals from Idaho now being held on suspicion of human trafficking in Port-au-Prince. We reserve judgment on the group's claim that they were motivated only by the best of intentions when they tried to spirit more than 30 youngsters across the border into the neighboring Dominican Republic without proper documents.

A century and a half after slavery was abolished in the United States, the stain of involuntary servitude lingers on in Maryland. Immigrant laborers brought into the state by human traffickers work for little or no pay on farms and construction sites; women and girls lured by false promises of office jobs end up as virtual prisoners in homes where they serve as nannies and maids; and young people of both sexes are forced into prostitution, with...