Sex trade thrives by exploiting Internet

Tipp City case illustrates how Web is used to lure women into prostitution.

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By Cornelius Frolik, Staff Writer 1:15 AM Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Sex traffickers in Ohio are using the Internet to meet and exploit women and children who they force into prostitution for their own economic gain.

Sex traffickers are taking full advantage of online classified advertising websites to promote, advertise and engage in sexual slavery, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of federal court records, local police reports, online sex advertisements and interviews with law enforcement authorities.

“I think we have a dozen cases involving sex trafficking, and ... , in at least half of them the Internet was used,” said Mike Tobin, spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland.

Ohio lawmakers have attempted to crack down on the sex  slave trade by enacting a law to address and penalize the activity. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is also calling on Backpage.com, a popular online classified advertising website, to produce information how it polices its postings to remove ads linked to sex trafficking, which is forcing a person to engage in commercial sexual activity by using force, fraud or coercion.

But victim advocates said Ohio needs a law to shield sex-trafficking victims from prosecution for prostitution crimes committed while enslaved. Sex traffickers, meanwhile, are finding new ways to skirt the law, avoid detection and grow their business, they said.

“When you address a particular aspect of the problem, the pimps, the operators, the organized criminals adapt, and they adjust how they are advertising, they change the ads,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Tipp City incident

On April 5, Tipp City police Sgt. Greg Adkins pulled over a sport utility vehicle on Interstate 75 after noticing the driver changed lanes without signaling.

Adkins said he spoke to the driver, Rodney Brown, 33, of Toledo, and sensed something was wrong after Brown voluntarily admitted he had marijuana in the vehicle and did not have a driver’s license.

“There were red flags,” Adkins said. “People just don’t act this way.”

Adkins said Brown’s passenger, Selma Hasanovic, 21, of suburban Detroit who died in July of an apparent heroin overdose, was reluctant to provide her name and information.

Based on Brown’s suspicious behavior, police decided to separate the pair for interviews, at which time Hasanovic immediately broke down, Adkins said. Hasanovic told police she was being held against her will by Brown, and he forced her to have sex with multiple men for money that he kept.

Hasanovic, who emigrated from Croatia, told police she met Brown only about a week earlier, but he had prevented her from leaving his home, gave her drugs and sexually assaulted her multiple times a day, authorities said.

She told police Brown repeatedly hit and threatened her and referred to himself as a “pimp.” His SUV was stopped while en route to Indianapolis, where Hasanovic said she would be forced to engage in more prostitution.

“She was scared to death,” Adkins said. “He, basically, in a nutshell, was her pimp ... He controlled her movements.”

Brown now faces six federal charges, including sex trafficking. Authorities said he used the Backpage website to find customers to have sex with Hasanovic.

Hasanovic’s mother, Hana Gredic of Dearborn, Mich., said she is heartbroken and angry over her daughter’s death, which she does not believe was accidental.

“I think somebody put heroin in my daughter to die,” Gredic said. “My daughter never used heroin.”

Backpage is just one of a slew of websites that the illegal sex industry uses to promote its services, authorities said. But the company became one of the largest online classified websites to feature adult ads after the popular website, Craigslist.com, came under fire from law enforcement and groups that oppose human trafficking and shut down its adult services section in September.

Each day, Backpage and several other websites featuring “adult entertainment” have dozens of listings for the Dayton area for massage services, escorts and erotic entertainment.

Dayton police officials said they routinely perform undercover sting operations that bust some of the people who post the ads, most of whom are prostitutes who work for themselves or an escort agency.

But police Lt. Brian Johns, who heads the vice unit, said officers do encounter women who are working at the direction of a pimp, who coerces them into prostitution, monitors or controls their movements and takes all of their earnings.

Johns said they try to bring charges against the pimps, but many women are afraid to testify and grand juries often will not indict unless there is other corroborating evidence. A grand jury last year declined to indict a Dayton man accused of coercing a woman into prostitution for money he kept.

In Cleveland, a 40-year-old woman was charged after she allegedly posted on Backpage sexual photographs of a 16-year-old girl who she forced into prostitution.

An Elyria man pleaded guilty this month to juvenile sex trafficking charges after using Backpage to advertise and attempt to sell a teenage girl for sex.

About 1,000 American-born minors are forced into the sex trade in Ohio each year, while another 3,000 are at risk of becoming victimized, according to a report released this year by the Ohio Trafficking in Persons Study Commission. About 800 foreign-born people are currently trafficked for sex or labor in the state.

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