Rape Of Girls: Worcester Man Brings Girl To US From El Salvador For Sex Against Her Will

A Massachusetts man faces human trafficking charges after he allegedly paid $5,000 to have a 14-year-old girl smuggled into the United States from El Salvador. Luis Santos, 22, meet the girl on Facebook and then sexually assaulted her once she moved into his home.

The Worcester man was arrested Friday, about a month after the girl arrived to Massachusetts and began living in Santos' apartment. He forced her to sleep in his bed and touched her against her will, police said.

A district court judge ordered Tuesday that Santos be held without bail until a dangerousness hearing Monday. Judge Paul McGill said Santos must not contact the girl or her state-assigned custodian.

Santos, a sanitation worker at a local meat processing factory, paid to have the girl delivered to him to "be his woman, and for her to have sex with him," Assistant Worcester District Attorney Lina Pashou said. The girl initially wasn't allowed to attend school or use the phone. She was kept locked in a bedroom. When she finally was allowed to leave the house, she escaped after finding family friends from El Salvador in Worcester. She eventually moved in with them.

The criminal case was initiated by Worcester Public Schools after the girl began attending classes. The girl was not named by law enforcement officials because she is a minor.

Santos faces charges of kidnapping, rape of a child with force, human trafficking of a minor and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older. Santos's lawyer, Jose Rosario, said his client "absolutely denies the allegations," and was not a threat to the victim or anyone else.

"He has no consciousness of guilt because he didn't commit a crime," Rosario said of Santos.

Roughly 82 percent of reported human trafficking cases in the United States stem from sex trafficking, while labor trafficking represents 11 percent of all human trafficking crimes, according to the Justice Department.