Sex worker says ex-Virginia cops paid for prostitution and protected a human-trafficking ring

A sex worker alleged that four retired police officers from Fairfax, Virginia, protected the human trafficking ring she was coerced into and paid for prostitutes.

The woman, who went by Jane Doe, blasted the four officers in court on Tuesday, including former Police Chief Edwin Roessler, Captain James Baumstark, and officers Michael Barbazette and Jason Mardocco.

Doe was living in Costa Rica when she was lured to the US to join the ring that was run by a madam named Hazel Sanchez before it was busted by the FBI in 2018. She later went on to file a lawsuit in 2021.

According to a lawsuit filed by Doe, defendants ‘conspired to cover up the fact that Fairfax County police officers were actively participating in, and benefiting sexually if not financially from, the work of a local sex trafficking ring,' where women were required to have sex with up to 17 customers a day.

 

 

Doe trembled in tears while giving her testimony last week while claiming Sanchez threatened to take away the passports of the women she recruited from Costa Rica if they didn't listen to her demands.

The woman thought she would be working as a nanny, housekeeper, or social escort with Sanchez allegedly telling her that she would also be going on dates to business dinners and events with wealthy men.

Under the impression that she was only taking a two-week trip, Doe met Sanchez in a Fairfax apartment in 2010 after flying to the U.S.

Sanchez then took Doe's travel documents and threatened her family if she didn't work as a prostitute. She managed to escape in 2015.

Doe claimed in court that the four officers conspired with Sanchez and chose to benefit from the sex ring rather than help the victims.

Barbazette and Mardocco's numbers were found in Sanchez's phone at the time of the FBI raid which led to their retirement.

‘They had to protect us,' Doe said on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. ‘They had to not be the clients. They didn't have to protect the Hazel ring.'

Doe claimed the only defendant she recognized at the trial was Barbazette.

Meanwhile, a witness took the stand and alleged she was paid to have sex with Mardocco.

Mardocco was described by Sanchez as ‘another protector of ours' and supposedly called Sanchez at one point and said ‘there's going to be a sting in your building apartment, do not let the girls work.'

The witness also claimed to have recognized Roessler.

 

Baumstark and Roessler's lawyers called the accusations ‘preposterous,' according to The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, Barbazette and Mardocco attorneys said the two confessed to hiring prostitutes but claimed the circumstances Doe describes are false.

None of the officers have been charged.

Kimberly Baucm, an attorney representing Baumstark and Roessler, claimed that Doe's remarks are false and referred to her as a ‘voluntary sex worker.'

‘Not a single piece of paper, not a phone call, not a text message, not an email,' Baucom said during the trial.

‘The claim that either Mr. Roessler or Mr. Baumstark were somehow involved in a sex-trafficking organization is preposterous. It's made up of whole cloth. It's simply false.'

 

Sanchez was revealed as the mastermind who brought multiple women from Costa Rica to the U.S. over the course of several years, according to court documents, and forced them into commercial sex work in cities and towns across the country, including those in Fairfax.

She pleaded guilty to felony racketeering and was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison in August 2019.

The suit also alleges that police tipped Sanchez off to sting operations. The FBI investigated at least two officers for corruption but ultimately referred the matter to the FCPD for follow-up.

When the suit was first filed in 2021, it didn't include all of the officers' names except for Roessler.

Victor Glasberg, the lawyer who filed the complaint on Doe's behalf, said at the time that his client was never able to learn their names.

But he obtained a court order requiring the police department to identify the officers described in the complaint.