The former Fairfax County, Virginia, police chief and three former officers are on trial for allegedly covering up a sex trafficking ring, as one of the victims, an illegal immigrant, took the stand accusing the four police officers of being clients of the prostitution business they allegedly allowed to operate.
A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, this week heard testimony from a woman, identified as Jane Doe, during a civil trial against four former members of the Fairfax County Police Department: former Chief Edwin Roessler, James Baumstark, a former captain who is now the deputy chief in Asheville, North Carolina, and officers Michael Barbazette and Jason Mardocco, FOX 5 DC reported. None of the four men have been criminally charged, and a lawyer for Roessler and Baumstark dismissed the allegations as “absurd.”
The woman testified that Hazel Sanchez lured her from Costa Rica to come to Virginia to work as a high-end nanny and escort who would spend time with wealthy clients but not necessarily have to have sex with them. Instead, according to Sánchez’s 2019 guilty plea, the women were forced to have sex with up to 17 men a day, including subjecting them to dangerous and degrading sexual acts.
Sánchez, sentenced to just two and a half years in prison for admitting to running “illegal prostitution activities,” confiscated the passports of five women and threatened to contact US immigration authorities if they did not comply with her demands.
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These file images show Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler at a press conference regarding the discovery of two sets of human remains that were found at Lincolnia’s Holmes Run Park in March 2017.
(Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Doe’s lawsuit alleges that the retired Fairfax police chief and three officers protected the human smuggling ring that operated in Northern Virginia until the FBI arrested her in 2019.
Doe argued that Roessler, Baumstark, Barbazette and Mardocco violated federal law by obstructing efforts to investigate and prosecute Sanchez.
She alleges that all four hired sex workers through the same lady. Taking the stand, the woman collapsed as she testified about the degrading sexual acts Sanchez forced her to perform on clients under threats and said the officers failed to do her duty by not breaking the ring.
This file photo shows a police car parked outside as people visit the Mosaic Shopping Center on October 30, 2021 in Fairfax, Virginia.
(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
“They had to protect us,” Doe said of the officers, according to The Washington Post. “They didn’t have to be the customers. They didn’t have to protect Hazel’s ring.”
Barbazette and Mardocco allegedly admitted to being Sanchez’s clients and resigned from the department when their phone numbers were discovered on the lady’s phone, FOX 5 reported.
Deputy Chief James “Jim” Baumstark began work with the Asheville Police Department (APD) on November 9, 2015. Prior to his arrival, he served with the Fairfax County Police Department (FCDP) in Fairfax, Virginia for more than 26 years.
(City of Asheville)
But Kimberly P. Baucom, an attorney for Baumstark and Roessler, argued that her clients were only added to Doe’s lawsuit later when it gained publicity, arguing that “there is not a shred of physical evidence” linking them to the case, reported The Post. .
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“The claim that Mr. Roessler or Mr. Baumstark was somehow involved in a sex trafficking organization is absurd. It is made up of nothing. It is simply false,” Baucom told the jury.
The lawyer further argued that Doe was “not a victim of human trafficking” but a “volunteer sex worker” who fabricated claims in her lawsuit seeking money damages.
