Queens Residents, Cop Indicted In Sex Trafficking Scheme: Feds

QUEENS, NY — For nearly a decade, a group of five people from Queens and a police officer from the Hudson Valley reportedly sex trafficked young, immigrant women and girls across New York. Now, all six people are being hit with sex trafficking and prostitution charges, federal records show.

Since May 2002, four Queens residents — Luz Elvira Cardona, 33, Roberto Cesar Cid Dominguez, 54, Blanca HernandezMorales, 51, and Jose Facundo Zarate Morales, 32 — pressured young women and minors to travel from their homes in Mexico to the United States under false promises of employment and a better life, records show.

Once smuggled into the U.S., however, the young women and girls were forced to engage in prostitution; getting transported to clients throughout New York who would pay the group — dubbed the Cid-Hernandez Sex Trafficking Organization — in exchange for sex with the victims, according to a federal indictment unsealed on Tuesday.

Another operation, known as the Godinez Prostitution Business, also transported victims from a location in Queens to statewide places where they were forced to have sex in exchange for money. Noe Godinez, 42, of Queens, was a driver for the operation, the indictment alleges.

Ricky J. Patel, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York division of Homeland Security Investigations, said that the sex trafficking operations used "deception and coercion" to force young women into "a miserable life of torment, sexual abuse and prostitution at the hands of their captors."

NYPD Commissioner, Dermont F. Shea, described the allegations outlined in the indictment as among "the most heinous crimes we confront."

Both of the operations were reportedly working in the Village of Brewster, where a police officer named Wayne Peiffer protected the sex trafficking groups — giving the groups a heads up about law enforcement operations and preventing them from getting arrested — in exchange for free prostitution.

Some of the sex acts even happened at the Village of Brewster Police Department building, where Peiffer has worked since at least 2006, the indictment alleges.

"The oath law enforcement officers take affirms they will serve and protect law abiding citizens and vulnerable members of the community, not aid and abet criminals who are abusing young girls and forcing them to have sex against their will," stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge, Michael J. Driscoll.

Cardona, Cid Dominguez, Hernandez Morales and Zarate Morales were arrested on Dec. 14th in Queens, and Peiffer was arrested on the same day in his Hudson Valley hometown. Godinez, however, is currently being sought by authorities.

All of the defendants were arraigned on Tuesday afternoon, too, where the 14 charges against them were read out loud, including sex trafficking, prostitution, bribery, and conspiracy charges.