toledoblade.com --

Bed mattresses, standing upright, block the front window view at the South Toledo home of a woman accused of pimping her 13-year-old daughter.

Jessica Cooper, 32, has been charged with promoting prostitution at three locations, including in Toledo and Fulton County. She was arrested just ahead of a nationwide underage-sex-trade sting announced last week.

According to a Toledo Municipal Court record, Ms. Cooper allegedly supervised, managed, and controlled the activities of her 13-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old girl while she and the girls were engaged in sexual activity for hire at locations including her home and two houses in Fulton County where several migrant workers were arrested during the sting operation.

Ms. Cooper, who has since been released on bond but could not be reached for comment, is accused of managing the girls by transporting and brokering deals with "various johns" who would pay her and the two girls for acts of sexual activity, according to the court document. The time frame was Aug. 1 to Oct. 3 this year.

Operation Cross Country IV, a three-day national enforcement action in 36 cities last weekend, led to the recovery of 52 children who were being victimized through prostitution. Additionally, 691 people, including pimps, were arrested on state and local charges.

In northwest Ohio, seven child victims were located or identified, four pimps were arrested, and 17 other adults were arrested for their involvement in prostitution activities.

The felony charges have come as a shock to many throughout northwest Ohio, including those in the largely rural area of Fulton County.

Fayette Police Chief Jason Simon said he couldn't recall any prostitution cases since he joined the force in 1995. It's certainly rare in the area, he said, but noted "It is still disturbing to me. It's wrong."

He was particularly unnerved to hear about allegations that a mother was pimping out her young daughter.

"It is especially disturbing when parents do that to their own child. It is bad enough to do that to someone else's child."

In Fulton County, Ismaiel Pachico, 35, was charged with sexual conduct with a person under the age of 16, and Mezia Sinforiano, 61; Francisco Baltazar, 32; Pablo Trigueros, 60, and Wilmar Velasquez Bravo, 20, were charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. They shared a house at 6632 County Road E near Delta.

The property, according to the county auditor's office, is owned by Thomas and Lynette Keil of Toledo. Keil Farm is located across the road from the house where the arrests were made.

Preliminary hearings in Fulton County Eastern District Court in Swanton have been continued to Dec. 3 for the five men, who are being held in the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio near Stryker.

A Toledo woman who said she has been Mr. Baltazar's girlfriend for two years, and is pregnant with his child, cried during the court proceedings last week. She said her boyfriend is innocent and said he was only at the house across from Keil Farm where he worked when he needed to catch a ride with another worker. Otherwise, Mr. Baltazar lived with her, she said. Mr. Baltazar is from Guatemala, she said, and she fears he will be deported. She said some of the other men arrested at the house worked at Keil Farm.

Also appearing in Eastern District Court was Ronald Greer, 30, of Toledo, who is charged with promoting prostitution. He was released on his own recognizance and Judge Colin McQuade bound the case over to Fulton County Common Pleas Court. Mr. Greer was arrested at the house across from Keil Farm.

Earlier in the week, Jose Fransisco Jimenez-Jimenez, 29, charged with pandering obscenity involving a minor, appeared in Western District Court in Wauseon. His preliminary hearing was continued to Dec. 1; he is being held in CCNO. He was living in a farmhouse on a property owned by Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development.

Some of the men are among seven people detained on immigration charges, officials said.

Mr. Jimenez-Jimenez was terminated about two weeks ago by the dairy farm for failing to show up for work multiple times, said Cecilia Conway, spokesman for Vreba-Hoff Dairy Development.

Until contacted by The Blade, Vreba-Hoff was unaware that the farmhouse where dairy employees live was part of the sex-trade sting, she said. "We take this very seriously," she emphasized. Vreba-Hoff will "get to the bottom of what had occurred," she said, and an investigation will be conducted to determine whether current employees were allowing illegal activities to occur on the property.

Fulton County Sheriff Darrell Merillat said search warrants were issued at the two rural homes, and migrants were residing at each. The victims, he said, were not living at those residences.

The investigation is ongoing, and depending how it unfolds, more charges could be filed, said David Dustin, supervisory special agent with the FBI.

"I think we have put an end to what was going on out at those two locations," Mr. Dustin said, but he added that there is a network operating across northwest Ohio where authorities believe others are prostituting children.

It appears the youngest victim involved in the prostitution activities was 13 years old, and others were in their mid-teens, Mr. Dustin said. All of the victims were girls from the Toledo area.

A 10-year-old girl who was being groomed for prostitution is included in the number of victims. "Any child being groomed for that is a victim," Mr. Dustin said.

It's not known how long the victims were involved in prostitution activities, he said.

Children's services and social service agencies have stepped in to ensure the victims are being taken care of and receive the services they need, he said, and to make sure the victims are placed in safe environments, whether that is back at home or in foster care or with the county. Those are the priorities, he said.

A federal investigation into a child prostitution ring in Harrisburg, Pa., turned the spotlight on Toledo in 2005. Nine local girls had been sold as sex slaves as part of the ring, and at least 12 of the 31 people charged had ties to Toledo.

Ohio and particularly Toledo are considered hubs for human trafficking because of their abundance of major highway arteries, a high volume of migrant and undocumented workers, and their proximity to casinos in neighboring states, all of which play into providing potential victims and customers.

Prostitution is considered by many rural residents as a "big city" crime, and several Fulton County residents said they were startled when they heard about the sex-trade sting arrests.

It's the first time something like this has happened in Swancreek Township, said Ron Holdeman, who has been a trustee since 2005. Before that, he was employed by the township for 14 years. He said the Keils are fine folks who probably are quite upset about this. The Keils did not return telephone calls seeking comments.

Law enforcement officials released few details, but the FBI's Mr. Dustin said the pimp would transport the girls to Fulton County and would collect the money. Prostitution activities apparently had been going on for months. Whether prostitution had occurred in other years during harvest seasons isn't yet known. Officials hope to find out, though, as the investigation continues, Mr. Dustin said.

Some friends of the arrested men said they planned to contact the Farm Labor Organizing Committee for assistance with issues related to the charges and immigration issues.

Baldemar Velasquez, founder and president of FLOC, announced Thursday that the group had partnered with the nonprofit Campaign for Migrant Worker Justice, which is launching an immigration services program to provide assistance to individuals living in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

He said the purpose of the new partnership is to get people in compliance with the law and to find every way possible to make that happen.

He said he is looking forward to hearing more about the situation in Fulton County involving the migrant workers.

His sense of this, he said, is that when migrant workers live in labor camps, they are there to do work people in this area do not want to do, and he said the allegations of prostitution "is not surprising."

Mr. Velasquez said he thinks what happens is that a pimp will drop off girls at a labor camp for a couple days to exchange services with migrants. The migrants, who depend on others for transportation, are there in the camps with the girls and possibly can "fall prey to that" situation.

However, he said that's no excuse to get involved in criminal activity, and if the men charged were involved with illegal activities, they will have to "pay for the crime."

If the accused lack proper immigration papers, that becomes a secondary issue, he said.

Contact Janet Romaker at:
jromaker@theblade.com
or 419-724-6006.

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