3 charged in human-trafficking ring

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Two men and one woman are charged with human trafficking after being accused of abducting at least four women and forcing them into prostitution by threatening to kill them and, in some cases, their children.

Solomon Pate, Demetrick Cooks and Rebecca Chap, all 26, were booked into the Travis County jail with bail for each set at $500,000.

"They're brutal- they are brutal and they have very little respect for human life," said APD Lt. Jerry Gonzalez.

The arrests came after two women contacted Round Rock police from a hospital where they were being treated for injuries. The women, one 18 and the other 19, told officers that they had been kidnapped in Houston by Pate. On the drive to Austin, they were drugged.

"A lot of times victims are afraid to truly speak up because of what they have been through already and are afraid that it is going to happen to them," said Gonzalez.

The women said they and two others were being kept in rooms at a hotel near the Capitol in Austin and were forced to solicit sex in the downtown area, according to arrest warrant documents released Friday. Two of the women managed to escape.

Round Rock police contacted Austin police who staked out the hotel and made the arrests by matching the suspects to the vehicles described by the two women. One of the vehicles was a pearl-white Bentley.

The other two women, one 22 and the other 25, were rescued from the room where they had been kept. They told police that they had been taken to several areas of the country where they worked as prostitutes.

"It really is a common story that we're starting to hear more and more often," a woman who works with the Central Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking told KXAN.  She did not want to be identified because of her role in working with trafficking survivors.

"With drug trafficking and arms- you sell the drugs one time and that's the profit that you make- but with humans- you can sell them over and over and over again- its just a matter of the profit," she said.

The CTCAHT is working to educate people in the medical community to look for signs that a person may be a trafficking victim.  They say a good sign is when the victim does not answer questions directly, but defers to a man posing as an uncle or guardian. The group is also working to educate hotel workers, since traffickers often set up shop in hotels and motels.

The CTCAHT encourages anyone who may be a victim of human trafficking to call the National Hotline at 888-373-7888.