Dunno, but I hope it don't show up again
St. Paul federal jury convicts all 5 on trial in Thai sex trafficking case
International probe led to charges against 39 people accused of trafficking hundreds of women to U.S.
By Stephen Montemayor Star Tribune DECEMBER 12, 2018 — 10:13PM
A federal jury in St. Paul has convicted all five people charged with conspiring to traffic hundreds of Thai women for sex, siding with prosecutors who alleged during a six-week trial that the defendants and nearly three dozen other co-conspirators ran a lucrative business that spanned more than a decade and crossed international borders.
Jurors returned guilty verdicts on all counts Wednesday afternoon, barely a day after receiving the case following six weeks of trial. Two waves of defendants from across the country were charged in the case, beginning in October 2016 and again in May 2017. All but five pleaded guilty to avoid trial. Prosecutors described the case as “modern-day sex slavery” and argued that the defendants forced Thai women to work long hours having sex with multiple men daily to pay off “bondage debts” owed to traffickers for help coming to the United States. Prosecutors said victims, some of whom testified during the trial, were misled as to how much they truly owed and were threatened if they tried to leave the business.
Flanked by federal prosecutors, agents and a victims’ advocate, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald described the case as one of the largest trafficking networks ever dismantled at the federal level.
“Sex trafficking is an industry that is built on supply and demand, and this organization fed that industry,” MacDonald said Wednesday. “It exploited, it abused, enslaved and sold women in response to the high demand for commercial sex that exists not only in the United States but here in Minnesota.”
Convicted on Wednesday was Michael Morris, aka “Uncle Bill,” 65, of Seal Beach, Calif.; Pawinee Unpradit, aka Fon, 46, of Dallas; Saowapha Thinram, aka Nancy or Kung, 44, of Hutto, Texas; Thoucharin Ruttanamongkongul, aka Noiy, 35, of Chicago; and Waralee Wanless, aka Wan, 39, of Colony, Texas.
All five were found guilty of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, conspiracy to use transportation for prostitution, conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to use a “communication facility” — such as phone or internet — to promote prostitution. Morris also was convicted of an additional charge of sex trafficking by “use of force, threats of force, fraud and coercion.”
www.startribune.com/st-paul-federal-jury-convicts-all-5-on-trial-in-thai-sex-trafficking-case/502626291/
I found this story and I'm wondering if there were separate cases in all of the 36 convictions