![]() “The valuable relationships that we have with the social services organizations who join us in these operations make it possible for these women to get help and be emancipated from this way of life. That’s 45 victims we were able to identify this year,” Judd said in a statement. “Not only did we arrest more suspects during this single operation than we have ever arrested before, we identified 21 human trafficking victims during a similar operation in February, we identified 24 victims. 19 and involved help from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, as well as police in Auburndale, Bartow, Davenport, Lakeland, Lake Hamilton, Lake Wales, Winter Haven and Zephyrhills, a news release describes.Įighty-three of those arrested are accused of soliciting a prostitute, 119 were identified as prostitutes - 21 of whom were designated possible human trafficking victims - and of the remaining 17, five “were either deriving proceeds from prostitution or aiding and abetting prostitutes,” and eight had driven said prostitutes to undercover officers lying in wait, according to the sheriff’s office.Īccording to Sheriff Grady Judd, it’s the most arrests the sheriff’s office has ever recorded in such an operation. ![]() Naming it “Operation Traffic Stop 2″ and painting the seven-day operation as human trafficking enforcement, undercover efforts began Sept. Given that he allegedly told detectives he had “several females that he worked,” further charges are pending against Escalona, the sheriff’s office said. Both found themselves put in contact with “Angie” before being flown into Orlando and eventually coerced to prostitute themselves with promises of wealth, as well as out of fear for their families’ safety and deportation, investigators said.Įscalona had reportedly loaned a victim money to get a car fixed, making her engage in prostitution to pay back the loan. Those victims, both of them immigrants, were allegedly snared after answering an advertisement for work in construction, they told investigators. A total of 44 felony charges and 242 misdemeanors went out during the investigation, according to the sheriff’s office.Īs described in a Polk affidavit, Guzman is accused of using the fake name “Angie” and keeping two women at an Orlando-area Super 8 hotel, selling them out as prostitutes almost daily for at least two months. Maria Guzman, 36, of Orlando, and Freddy Escalona, 30, of Chicago, face charges of human trafficking and deriving proceeds from prostitution. – Two people among 219 arrested in a Polk County prostitution sting now face human trafficking charges, one of them having sold sex services out of an Orlando-area hotel, according to the sheriff’s office. 24-year-old Keith Nieves of Orlando was arrested for two counts of Soliciting a Prostitute (M1). At the time of his arrest he was employed as a computer technician for the school. Polk County is home to one public university, one state college, and four private universities.POLK COUNTY, Fla. He was arrested in 2021 after the Orange County Sheriff’s Office learned Burke had been having sex with the high school student beginning in August 2020. This MSA is the 81st-most populous metropolitan statistical area and the 89th-most populous primary statistical area of the United States as of July 1, 2012.The center of population of Florida is located in Polk County, near the city of Lake Wales. Polk County comprises the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area. 19 there have been 219 suspects arrested as part of a week-long, multi-agency human trafficking enforcement effort dubbed 'Operation Traffic. Its county seat is Bartow, and its largest city is Lakeland. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said since Sept. ![]() ![]() The county population was 725,046, as of the 2020 census. ![]() Polk County is located in the central portion of the U.S. Some of the cities, towns, and places in Polk County are Alturas, Auburndale, Babson Park, Bartow, Bradley Junction, Combee Settlement, Crooked Lake Park, Crystal Lake, Cypress Gardens, Davenport, Dundee, Eagle Lake, Fort Meade, Four Corners, Frostproof, Fuller Heights, Fussels Corner, Gibsonia, Grenelefe, Haines City, Highland City, Highland Park, Hillcrest Heights, Homeland, Inwood, Jan Phyl Village, Kathleen, Lake Alfred, Lake Hamilton, Lake Wales, Lakeland, Lakeland Highlands, Lakeshore, Loughman, Medulla, Mountain Lake, Mulberry, Nalcrest, Pittsburg, Poinciana, Polk City, Wahneta, Waverly, Willow Oak, Winston, Winter Haven ![]()
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