in or Subscribe See Offers. Googins pointed to the case as an example of how South Portland police work with a variety of law enforcement agencies, including immigration officials, to enforce laws and ensure public safety in Maine and beyond.
Staff at the Main Street hotel reported suspicious activity around noon on March 18,in a room where a guest had checked in at that morning, said Lt. Frank Clark. Local investigators quickly found an escort service advertisement for a prostitute in South Portland on back. An officer called the in the ad, arranged to have sex at the hotel and had a female sex worker in custody by p.
The woman was a year-old documented Chinese immigrant with no known address, Clark said. Evidence in the room and on her cellphone indicated that she might be part of a larger operation, so South Portland police notified federal Homeland Security investigators based in South Portland who deal with a variety of human trafficking crimes. Department of Justice said this month. Chen also is charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; and sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. She faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Guo and Li each face a maximum five-year sentence.
The indictment states that from March to MarchChen and her two male accomplices victimized 12 individuals who traveled state to state to engage in prostitution in various hotels, the Justice Department said. The defendants posted on back. Chen and Li operated a call center in Flushing that scheduled meetings between prostitutes and clients, the Justice Department said.
Guo drove the victims to various hotels and collected proceeds from the prostitution. Prostitution charges against the woman arrested at the South Portland hotel were dismissed, Clark said. The move was widely seen as a step by Trump to make good on a campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants deemed to be in the country illegally. Last month, U. In Maine, Rep. Lawrence Lockman, R-Amherst, has proposed legislation that would cut state funding to government agencies that failed to comply with or assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law.
The council is expected to vote on the resolution at an upcoming meeting. A proposalwhich has been dropped, would have banned the police from assisting, cooperating or providing information in any federal raids, detentions or deportations of immigrants or Muslims without a warrant or subpoena. It is imperative that we be able to share our local information relevant to those cases.
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