Four Diego Martin men, who were facing a string of criminal charges related to the trafficking and forced prostitution of a Venezuelan teenager, have been freed after the alleged victim repeatedly failed to testify in court.
Keron “Summer Boss’ Pascal, Shaquille “Pipin” Noel, “K-Judah” James, and Jose Raphael Sorzano Perez were discharged by Chief Magistrate Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle after she upheld a no-case submission on Wednesday.
The men was arrested and charged after the teenage victim was found in a house in Diego Martin during a raid by police officers from the Western Division in October 2019.
The victim allegedly told police that she was invited to Trinidad by a friend, who promised to get her a job selling clothes.
She claimed that she arrived in Trinidad illegally on a boat with other Venezuelan migrants in September 2019 and was picked up on a beach by two men.
She claimed that she was taken to a house in Diego Martin and introduced to a group of men, who claimed to have purchased her for $2,000. She also claimed that she was told that she had to provide sexual services to men in order to repay the debt.
Pascal was eventually charged by the Counter Trafficking Unit with receiving and transporting a child for the purpose of child trafficking, harbouring a child for the purpose of child trafficking, knowingly receiving a financial benefit from the offence of trafficking in persons, causing a child to prostitute, controlling a child prostitute and facilitating child prostitution.
Noel was charged with receiving and transporting a child for the purpose of child trafficking and harbouring a child for the purpose of child trafficking, while Perez, who is a dual citizen of Venezuela and T&T, was charged with receiving and transporting a child for the purpose of child trafficking.
James was charged with sexual penetration of a child.
The police complaint in the case, WPC Rodriguez, testified that she visited several communities in Diego Martin but could not locate the victim. She also claimed that she made checks at several hospitals in Trinidad and Tobago to no avail.
She also claimed that she made contact with the victim’s mother via Facebook Messenger and was told that she (the victim) was now living in Columbia.
While under cross-examination, WPC Hernandez admitted that the victim was first suspected to be missing on May 10, 2021, and that she and her colleagues only began their attempts to locate her in February, last year.
She also admitted she and her colleagues did not interview staff and residents of the several care centres that the victim was placed in to help locate her. She also admitted that she did not make checks at the Immigration Detention Center in Aripo.
Chief Magistrate Busby-Earle-Caddle eventually dismissed the application as she ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove that all reasonable steps had been taken to locate the victim.
The group’s lawyers then presented the no-case submissions in which they claimed that there was insufficient evidence linking their clients to the alleged crimes.
The case was prosecuted by Kateisha Ambrose-Persadsingh and Donna Paul.
Perez was represented by Chase Pegus and Danyal Mohammed, while Pascal and Noel were represented by Russell Warner. James was represented by Larry Williams and Toni Roberts.