THE FIRST

OF SEVEN
PARTS
The Forum
SUNDAY EDITION
O F FA R G O - M O O R H E A D
SUNDAY, JANUARY 4, 2015 INFORUM.COM
A FORUM
NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE
SERIES

SEX
FOR SALE
IN THE
BAKKEN
Trafficking in ND is on the rise,
and often the victims can’t escape
STORY BY AMY DALRYMPLE AND KATHERINE LYMN FORUM NEWS SERVICE
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BENJAMIN EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY

C INSIDE
layton Louis Lakey scrolls, and girls Lakey asks to see a photo, and he discusses
beckon. paying $5,000 for the 10-year-old girl.
Rather, their sellers do. Minnesota connection: Investigators in For “it,” he says. For owning “it.”
Like carnival barkers in an Minneapolis check North Dakota sex-for-sale ads to He asks how the seller recruits girls to work
Internet sideshow, they tout their product: look for missing girls. Page A10
for him. How do you keep “the product” from
young women who will provide Ongoing cases: A look at current sex trafficking running?
companionship. For a price. cases in North Dakota. Page A10 He agrees to pay $250 for sex with the
“I have girls that are waiting for you to do 13-year-old.
with as you please,” one online ad promises. Do not rent: Oil Patch motels are starting to block
some from renting in an effort to deter prostitution. But when he arrives at the designated tryst
Lakey, 34, scrolls through the lurid postings, stop, he learns the girl doesn’t exist, her pimp
Page A9
scores of them offering a break from the is a cop, and Lakey is on his way to prison, his
tedium and loneliness of his solitary job when I get off work?”
twisted yearnings captured in police chat logs
packing dirt in the Bakken oilfields. “Sure, got cash?”
and court affidavits.
Another ad grabs his attention. “Hot young Lakey says he doesn’t want to use a condom.
Over the past six months, Forum News
girls!” it says. “They are experienced and “That’s fine.”
Service has investigated an emerging issue in
ready to go if you are.” And they talk in text shorthand, buyer and
the Bakken oilfield region of western North
Lakey is ready. With a few clicks, he says he seller, about younger girls.
wants a girl. A young girl. “What age is ur youngest you have?” Dakota: sex trafficking, including the
From a distant site, supply negotiates with “I have younger, but they’re not as trafficking of children.
demand. experienced as my 13 yo. I got a 10 yo in
TRAFFICKED: Page A8
“I have a little girl.” training but I don’t think she’s quite ready.”
“How old is she? Do you have a place
to host?”
“13 and yes I have a place to host.”
“Can I hook up with her tomorrow

ADDITIONAL CONTENT AT TRAFFICKEDREPORT.COM

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ABOUT
THE SERIES
Forum News Service
takes on the issue of
human trafficking and
female exploitation in this
seven-part
in-depth reporting series.
We explore the emerging
crisis as it unfolds in the
Oil Patch of western
North Dakota, as well as
in Minnesota and South
Dakota.
TODAY
A Booming Crisis
Understanding the
global human trafficking
crisis and its connection
to the Oil Patch of
western North Dakota,
where an influx of men
and money in recent
years has brought an
increased demand for
commercial sex.
MONDAY
The Game
We take a deeper
psychological look at
pimp control, which is
the manipulation of
often already vulnerable
women. Pimps are
masters at making
unwanted, perhaps
discarded women feel
wanted.
TUESDAY
Difficulty
in Detection
How is human
trafficking detected?
Hospitals, hotels and
other groups are taking
various steps to detect
and report possible
human trafficking.
WEDNESDAY
Prosecuting
Prostitution
Conversation, rather
than arrest and
interrogation, is one of
the tactics officers are
using today to gain
information about
traffickers and put them
behind bars. It’s no easy
task. While going after
traffickers is a priority,
those cases are difficult
to prove.
THURSDAY
Making the
Connection
The Internet has
become the new
battleground for sex
trafficking. It’s where
women and traffickers
go to promote sex for
sale, but it’s also a
powerful tool for law
enforcement in arresting
them.
FRIDAY
Squaring Up
Law enforcement and
victim service providers
in North Dakota are
identifying more victims
of sex trafficking, but the
closest dedicated
shelter for trafficking
victims is more than 500
miles away.
SATURDAY
What’s Next?
Human trafficking will be
a major topic of
discussion in the next
legislative session,
including a proposal to
adopt a new uniform law
on human trafficking.
JAN. 11
The Documentary
WDAY’s Kevin
Wallevand digs deeper
into sex trafficking in
North Dakota in a
30-minute
documentary-style
news program, airing at
10:35 p.m. Sunday.
ONLINE
Many additional stories,
photos, videos and
more can be found at
traffickedreport.com
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
WESTERN ND OIL BOOM
TRANSFORMS TOWNS,
BRINGS TRAFFICKING
TO THE FOREFRONT
BENJAMIN EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY
Oil development has made Williston, N.D., the fastest-
growing city of its size in the United States.
TRAFFICKED FROM A1
We reviewed hundreds of documents and conducted more
than 100 interviews with law enforcement officers, victim
service providers, victims rescued from the sex trade and
experts who have examined the issue regionally, nationally
and internationally.
Our reporting took us from the Dakotas to Washington, D.C.,
from predators in courtrooms and prostitutes in police cars to
top law enforcement agents, high elected officials and victim
advocates who once were caught up in “the life” themselves.
Our weeklong series begins today.
What we found:
Sex trafficking can be an incredibly lucrative business,
but far more for the traffickers than for the women and girls
they exploit. Traffickers near and far have shown themselves
eager to supply a booming demand in the “market” that is the
Bakken.
Sex traffickers operating in North Dakota frequently are
engaged in drug trafficking as well, and the extent of that
trade is growing, along with the severity of the drugs
involved.
Backpage.com, which has replaced Craigslist as the
primary Internet prostitution marketplace, daily displays
staggering numbers and varieties of sex-for-money ads,
especially in pages aimed at growing male-heavy populations
in Williston and Minot. But there is disagreement over
whether authorities should seek to end the practice, fearing
the ads could migrate to sites less easy for police to monitor –
or use to set up stings.
While many people may see prostitution as a life of
choice, advocates and others close to the issue increasingly
resist that characterization: Most of the women engaged in
prostitution actually are victims, they say, and need to be
treated as such. And while North Dakota lawmakers will
consider a proposal this year to decriminalize prostitution in
the case of minors, advocates insist more change is needed in
societal attitudes and authorities’ approaches to the problem.
Due to the nature of trafficking, women and girls caught
up in the sex trade often go undetected and unaided until they
have arrest records, mangled credit histories and other
bruises that make it difficult to escape what they call “the
life.”
North Dakota service providers, including staff at
domestic violence shelters, report seeing a growing number of
women and girls they believe to be victims of trafficking, but
the state has no dedicated shelters for trafficking victims and
the facilities that offer such services are 500 or more miles
from the Oil Patch.
Law enforcement agencies and victim service providers
in western North Dakota, even if inclined to help, are maxed
out, struggling to keep up with all the demands of a booming
population and the crime that has followed. With the recent
drop in oil prices projected to cut into state oil tax revenue,
advocates for shelters, more investigators, more mental health
and other social service providers may be competing for funds
from a diminished pot.
THE BUSINESS OF TRAFFICKING
As local, state and federal authorities look to ramp up
pressure on sex trafficking in the region, the initial arrest and
conviction numbers may not seem terribly shocking.
In the past year, federal and state courts in North Dakota
have charged seven people with offenses related to sex
trafficking or felony facilitating or promoting prostitution.
The cases involve allegations in Bismarck, Minot, Williston
and Dickinson, including the case of one man who pleaded
guilty to enticing women to travel to the “fracking areas” to
work as prostitutes and two accused of operating brothels in
Oil Patch cities.
More than a dozen men were convicted in the state in 2014 in
federal and state courts for seeking to buy sex with underage
girls. The sting that resulted in charges against Lakey snared
so many prospective johns it had to be shut down early.
Paula Bosh, who has worked as a victim specialist with the
FBI in Minot for 11 years, never encountered a human
trafficking case until recently. She now estimates she has
worked with 12 adult victims of sex trafficking in northwest
North Dakota in the past 1½ years.
“They seem to be coming from all over,” said Bosh, a lifelong
North Dakota resident.
She attributes the increase to a combination of increased
activity in the state and a change in attitude about sex
trafficking nationally that may contribute to more reporting.
“I think with greater awareness comes greater reporting,”
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
By Amy Dalrymple
Forum News Service
N
orth Dakota’s oil boom has transformed small,
relatively quiet towns into some of the fastest-
growing communities in the nation.
Advancements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing unlocked oil in the Bakken formation that
geologists had known for decades was there, and the
consequent surge in oil activity has vaulted North
Dakota to the heady status of second-highest
oil-producing state in the country.
While the frenzy of activity in northwest North Dakota
has leveled out to some degree, communities still
struggle to catch up to the rapid growth.
The largest cities in the Oil Patch – Williston,
Dickinson and Minot – are among the top five fastest-
growing cities of their size in the nation.
Williston grew 10.7 percent between 2012 and 2013, and
Dickinson grew 5 percent in the same timeframe.
“It’s hard to fathom the level of impact that has on a
community of our size,” Dickinson City Administrator
Shawn Kessel said when those figures were released.
And those rapid rates of growth are based on Census
estimates that only count permanent residents, not the
thousands of oil boom workers who work temporarily in
the region.
“What this really tells us is there are tremendous
challenges in dealing with the growth in permanent
residents that are a result of this expanding economy,”
said Dean Bangsund, a research scientist at North
Dakota State University who has studied western North
Dakota’s population growth. “Most people don’t
understand what a 15 percent population change means
to a local government or a service provider.”
The rapid influx has been particularly challenging for
people in law enforcement, who have seen calls for
service spike, making it difficult for officers to be
proactive on major crimes like drug trafficking and
human trafficking.
“Face it, this was Mayberry until this hit,” said
Williams County Sheriff Scott Busching. “We were so
preoccupied with the explosion of the boom and the
amount of assaults and burglaries and thefts and crashes
and whatever that it (human trafficking) didn’t pop to the
forefront like it has now.”
Bosh said. “We’ve just got to be ready for what to do when the
reports come in.”
The influx of young, unaccompanied men working high-
paying oil jobs fuels the market for trafficking in the Bakken,
said Siddharth Kara, a Harvard researcher who has traveled
the world interviewing victims and traffickers.
The male-female ratio in western North Dakota – two busy
Dickinson bars that scan IDs put it at 3-1 last year –
exacerbates that demand.
With communities still catching up to the challenges of
rapid growth, a general lack of awareness and strained law
enforcement resources, the risk of getting caught is
diminished.
Another factor complicating the issue: Drug crimes
increased 19.5 percent from 2012 to 2013 in North Dakota, and
many of the same people trafficking drugs are involved in sex
trafficking, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said.
“Everybody used to specialize, and now they’re
diversifying,” Stenehjem said. “They’re all tied together.”
But the money is certainly there in the sex business, too.
“Traffickers and pimps are already three steps ahead
thinking there’s an opportunity to make some money,” Kara
told Forum News Service in a recent interview. Those engaged
in human trafficking consider it to be a high-profit, low-risk
business, he said.
In his book, “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of
Modern Slavery,” Kara estimated that North American profits
from trafficked sex slaves were $581 million in 2007.
Polaris, a national anti-trafficking organization, does the
math: A trafficker who has a “stable” of three women with a
quota of $500 a night each, seven days a week, could “earn”
more than $500,000 tax-free in a year.
The same staggering numbers also quantify the “trauma
experience” suffered by a woman under an ambitious pimp’s
control. A quota of five customers a night means 1,825 forced
sexual encounters a year.
Globally, 4.5 million people are victims of forced sexual
exploitation, according to an estimate by the International
Labor Organization.
NORTH DAKOTA UNDER SCRUTINY
Adults who are coerced or forced into engaging in
prostitution through the use of violence, threats, lies or other
tactics are considered victims of sex trafficking under federal
law. Anyone under age 18 who is involved in commercial sex is
considered a victim regardless of whether force, fraud or
coercion are involved.
In 2013, the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children estimated that one in seven endangered runaways
STORY CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
‘DO NOT RENT’
G
arnet Finchum’s face says without
words that she doesn’t have time for
nonsense.
She and husband Dwight manage
Dickinson’s Travel Inn, one in a row of plain
motels just a couple of turns off of Interstate 94.
Before this, she managed the Tumbleweed Inn
in Alexander, N.D. In both Oil Patch cities, she
said, participants in prostitution are frequent
visitors.
Motel managers in western North Dakota say
they’re reluctant to rent to single women because
of the amount of prostitution they see. Finchum
will break the rule if she knows the woman or
her employer or if the woman looks
“respectable,” she said one night last fall.
On a “Do Not Rent” list of about 60 names kept
at the Travel Inn, a quarter of the people are
banned for prostitution – some men for soliciting,
but mostly women.
Over her time in the Oil Patch, Finchum has
learned the signs, like a woman wanting to pay in
cash. Other times, she and staff members scroll
through Backpage.com, sometimes matching a
face at the reception with a woman in an ad.
At the Vegas Motel in Williston, about half of
the 400 names on a similar “Do Not Rent” list are
STORY CONTINUED
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
reported to them was likely a sex trafficking
victim.
The issue has attracted more attention in North
Dakota lately because of the rapid population
growth, especially in young, unattached men with
lots of money and limited social opportunities.
But it is hardly new.
Kara, considered an authority on human
trafficking, said sex slavery has been more present
in rural America than many people realize, and
anecdotal evidence from western North Dakota
prior to the oil boom seems to bear that out.
Heidi Carlson, who was recruited into
prostitution as a Minnesota college student, said
she traveled a circuit in the 1980s that included the
Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nebraska.
“I’ve always known North Dakota as a spot that’s
got a lot of trafficking,” said Carlson, who has
since worked to help trafficking victims in the
Twin Cities. “There were no man camps when I
was in North Dakota. It was all the community
guys.”
But the oil boom has put a brighter spotlight on
North Dakota and the issue of human trafficking,
drawing several rounds of national media
attention and a recent visit to Williston by a senior
human trafficking adviser for the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services.
Polaris sent a staff member from Washington,
D.C., to North Dakota last year to provide training
sessions. Polaris CEO Bradley Myles said people
who track online ads for commercial sex noticed a
spike in the Bakken region, and anecdotal reports
from victim advocates and nonprofit groups also
raised red flags.
People are wondering, Myles said. “Is this a new
hotspot for human trafficking, both sex trafficking
and labor trafficking, of U.S. citizens and
immigrants?”
That concern brought Windie Lazenko to North
Dakota.
The victim advocate and sex trafficking survivor
traveled to Williston from Florida in the fall of
2013 to survey the area, planning to report back to
national groups.
But she stayed in the region and is assisting
sexually exploited women and girls more than a
year later through her organization, 4her North
Dakota.
“I was so overwhelmed and broken over the
amount of human trafficking that’s going on
here,” Lazenko said. “There were no resources.
There was not one person in the entire state of
North Dakota that was working in human
trafficking, serving victims or even doing
training or education.”
VIRTUAL TRACK
It is mouse-click easy now for women and
johns to connect. Sites like Backpage.com
host the ads, and meetings can be
arranged without a woman ever having
to be seen soliciting sex.
Backpage.com has as many as 70
commercial sex ads in a typical
night for Williston and sometimes
100 or more for Minot.
Minneapolis police Sgt. Grant
Snyder, who trains law
enforcement officers on human
trafficking, was concerned about
the potential for trafficking in the
Bakken and monitored Backpage
ads west of Bismarck for four
months. He found that 70 percent of
the ads had been posted in a
different state the previous week.
“That’s shocking,” Snyder said.
“Nobody else has that issue. Even
(Las) Vegas, where there’s a high
population of transient victims that
come and go, they don’t have those
kind of numbers.”
Traffickers often move from city
to city to stay off the radar, Michael
Osborn, chief of the FBI’s Violent
Crimes Against Children unit, told
Forum News Service in a recent
interview.
“Their belief and part of their
methodology is if I can hop city to
city, I have less opportunity of
being identified as a repeat
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
women banned for prostitution, said general
manager Jeff Smith.
The motel now requires every guest who comes
to a room to register at the front desk, an attempt
to deter prostitution, Smith said.
The Vegas accepts cash for payment, with a $100
room deposit. Smith said that’s his policy because
a lot of decent people don’t have credit cards.
At Williston’s HomStay Suites, a new policy to
require a bank credit card at check-in led to about
a 50 percent reduction in prostitution activity,
said general manager Judy Carlson.
“We’re trying every avenue to get them out,”
Carlson said.
Last February, Carlson came to Williston from a
hotel on the eastern side of the state.
“We dealt with it in Fargo, but not on this
scale,” she said of prostitution activity in the
rooms.
Carlson trains her staff to place women from
Las Vegas, Milwaukee and Detroit on the ground
floor so they can call police if they see lots of
traffic to a room.
The pimps themselves are rarely present in the
motels and hotels. They might be in a car outside,
or even back where the pair calls home, several
states away.
offender in one city,” Osborn said.
Some perceive the women on Backpage.com as
opportunists moving to the Bakken eagerly to
earn big money and that they are engaging in a
“victimless crime.” Attitudes are shifting,
however, as reflected in a recent comment by Tim
Purdon, U.S. attorney for North Dakota.
“My belief is that a lot more people involved in
prostitution are being forced into it through some
form of force, fraud or coercion,” Purdon said.
DRUGS, ALCOHOL, DEPRESSION
Clayton Louis Lakey was the first conviction
from more than a dozen men arrested in
“Operation Vigilant Guardian,” a federal sting
targeting men in Dickinson and Williston who
were seeking to purchase sex with minors.
One still has a plea agreement pending, and one
is set to go to trial next year.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Delorme told the
judge during Lakey’s sentencing that the catch-a-
predator operations work, and they can prevent
children from being abused in the Bakken.
“The money that’s flooding in, the people that
are flooding in, there’s a problem out there,”
Delorme said.
But Heather McCord Mitchell, a federal public
defender who represented Lakey and met with
several of the defendants from the sting, told the
judge that the problems arise from more than the
money flowing into the Bakken. A majority of the
men were having difficult times with nowhere to
turn, she said during Lakey’s sentencing hearing.
“It’s a lot of men who are away from their
families, isolated, lonely, many grappling with
severe depression,” she said. There is
considerable alcohol and drug use in the area, and
a lack of services, particularly a lack of mental
health services, adds to the feeling of isolation,
she said.
McCord Mitchell doesn’t necessarily think
Lakey or the other men are predators and noted
that many had lived mostly law-abiding lives.
“People do incredibly stupid things when
they’re suffering from depression and they’re
isolated and they have no support systems,” she
said.
Bill Schmidt, another federal public defender
who represented some of the defendants from the
sting, argued for a lesser sentence in another case,
pointing out that none of the cases involved
Sunday, January 4, 2015 A9
KATHERINE LYMN / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
Garnet Finchum has a “Do Not Rent” list at
the hotel she manages in Dickinson.
underage victims. “I think there are far bigger
fish to fry in western North Dakota than
undercover sting operations,” he said.
But U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland
responded that he wishes law enforcement
agencies had resources to do more stings to
“curtail the chaos the oil boom has created.”
“These are troublesome crimes,” Hovland said
during a court hearing. “We have a problem in
this state, and we have to do something about it.”
UNDERAGE AND UNDETECTED
It’s unclear how many underage girls are being
forced into prostitution in North Dakota, but
national statistics show that the average age of
entry into prostitution is 12 to 14.
Police in Moorhead rescued a 13-year-old sex
trafficking victim in June after responding to a
suspicious ad on Backpage.com. The girl was a
runaway from the Twin Cities.
Grand Forks police have encountered two
underage sex trafficking victims in the past two
years, said Lt. Jim Remer. One case involved a
17-year-old girl, and the trafficker was recently
sentenced in a federal case in Minnesota.
Claudine O’Leary, who works with teens in
Milwaukee who have been trafficked, said she’s
identified at least 10 underage victims who were
trafficked in North Dakota in the past three years.
And while the trafficking cases prosecuted so
far in North Dakota have not involved underage
victims, the strong response to stings that
advertise underage girls using keywords on
Craigslist and Backpage indicate underage
victims likely are in the state, Attorney General
Stenehjem said.
“If these people are out making the calls and
responding to these advertisements thinking there
are young girls, it must be because there are some
available,” Stenehjem said. “Because otherwise
the word would get around, there’s no point to call,
all these ads advertising these young girls are
cops, are stings. That’s not what’s happening.”
‘I DON’T KNOW HOW I
COULD HAVE EVEN DID IT’
Lakey, the oilfield worker caught up in the
November 2013 Dickinson sting, pleaded guilty in
U.S. District Court in May to a charge of coercion
and enticement. He was sentenced to five years in
prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
He also must register as a sex offender.
He did not respond to a letter sent to him in
prison requesting an interview.
He was legally separated from his
wife, he told a federal judge, and had
been working in North Dakota for
three years, trying to make
enough money to get a better
place and seek custody of his
5-year-old daughter.
“I was just going through a
hard time and lonely,” Lakey
Lakey told the judge.
He said he was earning $5,000 a month
doing “solids control” on drilling rigs,
drying and storing dirt brought up by
drilling. He worked 12-hour days for
two weeks, then had two weeks off.
“Well, I was working a real – a
one-person job and really didn’t
have anybody to talk to or anything
like that,” he said in court. “And I
just got bored and doing – looking
back at this now, it just – I don’t
know how I could have even did it.”
But he did. He arranged to pay to
have unprotected sex with a
13-year-old girl. And he asked an
undercover agent for his “secrets”
on how he, too, could recruit a girl.
Rob Fontenot, an investigator
with the North Dakota Bureau of
Criminal Investigation, was
involved with the sting.
“What was scary ... was that he
would refer to the child as ‘it’. As
in, ‘It’s’ an object, not a human
being. How do you keep ‘it’ from
running away?” Fontenot said.
“As a parent and a cop and a
human being … it’s shocking to
think those people are really out
there.”
 A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
A10 Sunday, January 4, 2015 INVESTIGATIVE SERIES

CARRIE SNYDER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE

Kimberly Lovett of St. Paul, right, protests against sex trafficking during a march and candlelight vigil that was held outside Breaking Free in October.

THE MINNESOTA CONNECTION

By Amy Dalrymple Women who post on Backpage.com say pimps are Lovett, of the Twin Cities, was in prostitution and
and Katherine Lymn among their callers, trying to recruit them. exotic dancing for 26 years, spending the past decade
Forum News Service Kimberly Lovett, who marched in a rally against traveling through Minot, Williston, Watford City,

I
n the Twin Cities suburb of Columbia Heights,
Minn., police officers say they know about North
Dakota. Their detective colleagues at the Anoka
County Sheriff ’s Office know that when a local
girl goes missing, to check North Dakota’s Backpage
ads.
Girls on the street talk about the oilfield, Columbia
Heights police Officer Maggie Titus said as she
participated recently on a Twin Cities panel
discussing sex trafficking. Some have visited the Oil
Patch, she said, and men working legitimate jobs
there come home to Minnesota and talk about how
visible the sex trade is.
“It’s unfortunately a free-for-all up there,” Titus
said. “There’s no wives.”
sex trafficking in St. Paul last fall, said she left that
life behind about a year ago. “I ain’t for sale no
more,” she said. “I’m just done with it.”
Cities between Minneapolis and the Bakken also
report seeing an increase in sex trafficking. Willie
Navy, a man arrested on sex trafficking charges in
November in Moorhead, was on his way to Williston
and had promised a woman she’d make $500 to $1,000
an hour there, according to court records. The
woman told police Navy wanted her to work a few
jobs in Moorhead so they’d have enough money to
drive to Williston.
“Unfortunately we’re seeing a lot of our metro girls
being brought out to the oilfields,” Anoka County
Detective Thomas Strusinski said in an interview.
Fargo and cities in South Dakota.
While in North Dakota’s Oil Patch, she said she’d
earn $1,000 on a bad night.
“I did outcalls in cars, trucks, hotels, fifth wheels,
all that stuff,” said Lovett, who was last in North
Dakota in August 2013.
While Lovett says she didn’t have a pimp, she said
she knew of women and girls who were trafficked to
the area.
“There are some pimps that moved in and bought
some houses up there and are keeping the girls up
there,” she said. “Because the money is unlimited. I
don’t even know why people come back here (to
Minnesota) if they want to continue in that life
because the money is better.”

ONGOING CASES DEMAND IS HIGH

OF TRAFFICKING IN THE OIL PATCH
By Katherine Lymn investigators in the Dickinson sting.
TRINA NGUYEN AND LOC TRAN face federal Forum News Service When they inquired by text or email,

human trafficking charges and other charges after
allegedly operating a brothel in Minot, N.D., and
then, after posting bond on similar state charges
there, moving their operation to Dickinson, N.D. The
operations were disguised as massage parlors. Both
are awaiting trial.
KEITH A. GRAVES is charged in U.S. District Court
with five counts of sex trafficking by force or
coercion. He was set to go to trial in Williston, N.D.,
this month before the local charges were dismissed
and a federal grand jury indictment was unsealed,
charging him with trafficking five adult women in
North Dakota.
LEVELL DURR recently pleaded guilty to enticing
two women to come to work in North Dakota in
prostitution. He’ll be sentenced in federal court in
Bismarck in March.
PRINCE JONES AND EYEESHA HINTON each
faced sex trafficking charges in Clay County after
Moorhead police rescued a 13-year-old girl they found
through a Backpage.com ad. Hinton pleaded guilty to
soliciting or inducing an individual to practice
prostitution and will be sentenced Feb 2. Jones is
awaiting trial.
WILLIE NAVY of Fargo faces sex trafficking charges
in Clay County. A woman told police Navy harassed
her for months to work as a prostitute for him and
promised her she could earn big money in Williston,
N.D.
STEVEN EZEOFOR of Las Vegas faces a human
trafficking charge in Burleigh County after Bismarck
police officers responded to an escort ad and found
him with the woman. With a search warrant,
investigators found he was in control of more than
$13,000 in cash while the woman had $3. His
preliminary hearing is Jan. 12.
S
even men – some enraged, some an officer posing as a pimp said he
embarrassed, some ashamed – could set up a “date.”
crowd holding cells in the jail Most of the men backed out when the
just across the interstate from officer said the ages, which ranged
the Best Western hotel in Dickinson, from 10 to 16.
N.D. These 11 men bit.
Two other guys, the latest would-be They drove to the hotel, knocked on
“johns” caught in a prostitution sting,
Nguyen the assigned door, expecting to pay for
sit on a hotel room floor at the Best sex with an underage girl, and they
Western, handcuffed and dazed.
were swiftly arrested.
Across a parking lot from the hotel, The men arrived so quickly,
still two more men are detained at the
authorities said, the operation had to
Astoria Hotel. be shut down early.
All of the men were arrested after There are many thousands of men,
responding to a fake ad offering sex for teenagers to retirees, flush with cash,
money. maybe far from family, hard-working
And the messages kept coming. and with few options for distraction,
“We could’ve got 10 more that night,” emboldened perhaps by an entitlement
Tran said Rob Fontenot, a North Dakota mentality. Men who came to North
Bureau of Criminal Investigation Dakota to find opportunities they
agent who led the operation, one of couldn’t find at home.
several that authorities have conducted It’s a matter of supply and demand in
in western North Dakota. the Bakken.
That night in late 2013, agents had to And right now, both appear to be at
stop responding to emails and texts an all-time high.
from other men because they were at
maximum capacity, Fontenot said.
The ads these men responded to were
Graves like hundreds of others posted online
each week, carefully but suggestively
worded propositions.
“Hot body … don’t miss out …
sexy blonde … Let me rock your
world.”
Most of the ads include
photographs of women in
lingerie. Some hint that the
women offered are actually
Durr girls, younger than 18.
Dozens of men
responded to the fake
ads posted by

Ezeofor Navy Hinton Jones

THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND

 THE SECOND
OF SEVEN
PARTS
The Forum LATE EDITION
O F FAR GO - M O O R H E A D
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2015 INFORUM.COM
A FORUM
NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE
SERIES

GETTING INTO
‘THE GAME’
Pimps often aren’t present, but their
manipulation can still keep victims
in the life of prostitution unwillingly
STORY BY KATHERINE LYMN AND AMY DALRYMPLE FORUM NEWS SERVICE

PHOTO BY BENJAMIN EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY

I “
t was the early 1980s, and the evolving
Block E of downtown Minneapolis
had life, with hustlers and prostitutes
interspersed with the suit-and-tie
crowd that spilled out of skyscrapers
at 5 o’clock.
That’s the life; it’s the game. It’s the life you live. And
Jenny Gaines, 14, had heard about the you buy into all of that, and you don’t understand
place from a girl she’d befriended at a group
home, a place where people had tried to you’ve been victimized or brainwashed.
tame her rebellious, self-destructive
JENNY GAINES, SEX TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR
behavior. The girl, Pam, was good at doing
hair, wore Guess jeans and constantly
talked about her “daddy.” She drew
elaborate pictures of herself in a fur coat, streets downtown, she could be someone “You’re gonna be with me,” he said.
“Daddy” in his suit and the two of them else. Beneath his Jheri curl, the older
getting into a limo. It all seemed so Standing next to the jukebox playing “Alexander” looked Jenny in the eye, told her
glamorous, her life in prostitution. “Superfreak,” Jenny saw the man who she was pretty and took her on a coffee date
Jenny listened, hungry for a change. She’d would become her first pimp walk into the at the McDonald’s a few doors down. His
recently swallowed a bunch of aspirin, Fun Center arcade in downtown middle name is used here for safety reasons.
hoping her somewhat absent father would Minneapolis. She was in her Madonna “I couldn’t believe that he was talking to
come to the rescue. Between stays in phase, and he looked like “Beat It”-era me, you know?” Jenny recalls.
behavioral homes, she fought stubbornly Michael Jackson. He walked in, commanded It was the beginning of what would lead to
the room with his dance moves, then took decades in the world of sex-for-sale.
with her mom or fled to her dad, who was
often gone overnight. her hand and pulled her outside. THE GAME: Page A4
One night, a couple of weeks into a
treacherous year at a big new high
school, Jenny ran away. On the

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 A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
A4 Monday, January 5, 2015 INVESTIGATIVE SERIES

THE GAME FROM A1

‘A SIXTH SENSE’
Like Alexander, pimps generally have a knack for identifying vulnerable girls – girls like Jenny, whom
they lure and then trap with threats of violence and distorted love. At bus stops, in malls or online,
they’re experts in catching the girls who feel belittled, misunderstood or deserted by family and society.
Pimp as safety net.
“Any player can tell when a girl has the look of desperation that you know she needs attention or
love,” one Chicago pimp stated in a 2010 DePaul University study. “It’s something you start to have a
sixth sense about.”
That same study found a pimp’s prime candidate is a blonde runaway.
“These guys are better at their jobs than we are at ours,” said Rob Fontenot, the North Dakota Bureau
of Criminal Investigation agent in charge of trafficking investigations. He describes pimp recruitment
as like a pursuing lion on National Geographic; the cunning predator doesn’t go for the fastest gazelle,
but the limping one with the broken leg.
“Everybody thinks about this as Laura Ingalls Wilder bounding through the prairie and gets snatched
up. But that’s not the common way this happens,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said. “The common way
it happens is they look for the right person, the vulnerable person, and that’s how they get in the life.”
Once he’s found that girl, the hungry one who’s mad at Mom, he captures her with a feigned love
interest. Then the perceived love turns into an ask. And then he turns her out for a profit.
The women whose names fill blacklists at Oil Patch motels, whose risque outfits draw attention and
scorn in small Dakota towns, whose sensual and often fake photos flood the Internet site Backpage,
aren’t always operating of their own will, experts and former sex trafficking victims say. And, the girls
aren’t always brought in from the outside. Pimps often recruit from within communities.
“It is something that you need to be worried about if you have daughters and sons, grandkids or
whatever,” said Windie Lazenko, who works with victims in Williston. “It’s your issue, too, because it
doesn’t discriminate, and it can happen to anybody.”
‘NORTH DAKOTA’S GOT A PROBLEM’
Alexander frequently would bring Jenny into the then-seedy Block E bars. Seven years shy of legal
and running away for a few days at a time, Jenny felt grown up. Other nights, they’d drive down
Minneapolis’ Lake Street.
“There’s a working girl right there ... what do you think?” Alexander would ask.
Jenny would balk. “I couldn’t imagine walking down a street and just getting into strange cars,” she’d
say. Dismissive.
“Only a strong woman can do that,” he’d counter. Calculated.
“I actually admire her, you know, I respect the hustle in her,” he’d say. “She’s doing what she’s gotta do
to take care of her kids and her family and her man.”
Today, just as the marketing of sex is moving toward the Internet, so too is the recruitment of
victims. Pimps will browse social networking sites, looking for young frustrated
girls who air their anxiety in sullen posts.
“The pimps tell us that they can pick these girls out,” St. Paul police Sgt. Ray
Gainey said, “that they can just spot them.”
American Indian reservations present especially vulnerable girls who often
suffer generational violence, dysfunctional families and alcoholism causing fetal
alcohol spectrum disorders, said Suzanne Koepplinger, formerly the executive
director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center. What’s left is a
population of girls, including at the Fort Berthold reservation in the heart of the
Bakken, who may struggle to understand cause-and-effect and have a deep need to
please.
“When you have vulnerable kids and particularly Native girls and Latinas, and
you have a market, you’ve got a problem. And North Dakota’s got a problem.”
BRAINWASHED
Lazenko calls it “sleeping with the enemy.”
Now an advocate for victims in Williston, Lazenko lived the life of prostitution
and sexual exploitation from age 13 to 32.
Pimp control is the art of making a girl feel wanted, enough that she suffers the
punches for the emotional connection. Experts say trafficking shares the dynamic
of domestic violence, but society’s awareness and understanding of trafficking
today is where domestic violence was 20 years ago. Through
psychological manipulation, the pimp brainwashes his victims into
thinking only he can provide for them and that no one else understands
them, especially law enforcement. To police and domestic violence
centers, a woman will call a pimp her boyfriend, her “daddy.” And
especially if she comes from a broken or violent home, she may not
realize she’s a victim.
“You wait on your man hand and foot,” Jenny says. “You go
to prison for him, you take cases for him, you go get his money
every night, rain, sleet or snow. You pull other women for him.
You do all this stuff.
“That’s the life; it’s the game. It’s the life you live. And you
buy into all of that, and you don’t understand that you’ve been
victimized or brainwashed.”
Jenny can’t entirely explain the control Alexander had over
her at the time, but she remembers the way he made her feel.
“I wanted to please him, you know, because when it was
good, things were really, really good. I mean he really knew
how to make me feel so special, you know?” she says.
“But as soon as I was getting too confident or whatever” –
she snaps her fingers – “he knew how to shut it down, too. So
after the abuse would happen, you’re so broken, so then when
they come with the love, I mean you just soak it up.”
If not for the emotional element, the girls would leave, said
Sandi Pierce, a St. Paul-based researcher who focuses on the
sex trafficking of girls of color and is a survivor of sex
trafficking.
“Violence is the heart and soul of pimping. … But the
psychological is what keeps the girls loyal and unable to
escape,” said Pierce, who is of Seneca Indian descent.
When the psychological manipulation doesn’t work, and a
victim doesn’t want to turn her sixth trick in a day, the pimp
breaks her down and builds her up into what he wants her to
be.

STORY CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

ILLUSTRATION BY TROY BECKER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE

THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND

A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
STORY CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
“They don’t want to damage that girl
because she won’t be worth as much. [It’s]
more coaxing and loverboy method,”
Pierce said. “But once she’s in, there is a
breaking process.”
Lazenko, who said she was molested as a
child, said she remembers the deep need to
feel safe and wanted after a troubled
upbringing.
“You’ll take it from just about anywhere,
even from someone who raped you or beat
you the night before,” she said.
Often these women are controlled
through dependence on drugs, concern for
children fathered through their pimps or
fears for their immigration status.
None of his threats may be true, but
that’s the psychology of pimping: control
over what’s real.
With tattoos, pimps brand the women in
their “stables,” as if they were cattle.
“They want people to know that this person is spoken for,” said Vanessa
Chauhan, North Dakota’s representative from Polaris, a national anti-
trafficking group.
And usually they are.
Pimps will talk for their victims in hospital visits or on traffic stops,
according to information presented to nurses and cops at trafficking
detection trainings. The victims won’t make eye contact. Like a batterer, a
pimp will enforce trivial
demands and monopolize a girl’s
world to keep her compliant and
fearful.
A pimp recently convicted in
Minnesota federal court had a
guide in his possession when he
was arrested: “Pimpology: The
48 Laws of the Game.” The man,
Dontre D’Sean McHenry, also
had handwritten notes.
“Are u homeless?” one read.
“Tired of your mom/dad getting
on ur nerves?”
Pimps are masters at making
unwanted, perhaps discarded
women feel wanted, said
Minneapolis police Sgt. Grant
Snyder, who has trained law
enforcement officers, including
in North Dakota, in handling
trafficking cases. “They make
them feel relevant when
everybody in their lives has
made them feel irrelevant.”
The pimp will sift through a
victim’s emotional history and
latch on to vulnerabilities. If she
had issues with her father
growing up, he’ll be “Daddy”
during the loving part of
recruitment. If she has low self-
esteem, he’ll tell her she’s the
most beautiful woman in the
world.
Sociologist Tim Pippert, who’s
studying sex trafficking as part
of his research into the
community effects of western
North Dakota’s rapid growth,
said victims may say to
themselves and others that they
chose a life of prostitution as a
survival mechanism. He
compares it to homeless men and
women who say they choose to
live on the street.
“If you can say you choose to
be there, you say to yourself that
that’s an option, right, that ‘I
could always leave if I wanted,’ ”
said Pippert, an associate
professor at Augsburg College in
Minneapolis.
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
This is the life of Jenny
Gaines. Lured into sex
trafficking at age 14, she
spent 28 years in a life of
prostitution. Throughout the
past six months, Forum News
Service has spent time
getting to know Jenny. Today
and over the next few days,
we’ll share her story.
Monday, January 5, 2015 A5
PHOTO BY BENJAMIN EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY
CONTROL FROM AFAR
In one of the days between her escape from a pimp and his arrest, a 23-year-old
woman was coloring at Lazenko’s home. The woman looked at her phone and
began shaking. Her face turned white.
Levell Durr had texted the woman a red dot. The dot was on a map showing
exactly where she was sitting, Lazenko said.
Durr is now in custody in Devils Lake, awaiting sentencing on a trafficking
conviction in federal court. He told his victims they couldn’t look anyone in the
eye, especially men, and had to kiss his hand when they handed him their money,
one of those victims told investigators. They had to give him everything they’d
made, less enough for them to buy food from a vending machine. In his plea deal,
Durr admitted to enticing two women to work in prostitution in North Dakota,
but he didn’t admit to using force.
Once he was behind bars, his control just took a different form.
When another man began to follow Lazenko and the victim she was assisting
around the Williston WalMart, he could’ve just been a pimp on the prowl, trying to
recruit girls, Lazenko said. But as he followed her through the clothing aisles, and
then when the same thing happened twice more, it became more apparent she was
his target. The message was clear: Durr had eyes on her from behind bars.
He was in jail, but his victim still wasn’t free.
One of the men stalking her approached her in the checkout aisle at WalMart.
“Where’s your man?” he asked, wanting her to say she had gotten Durr locked up.
She froze.
“That’s when I left our stuff at the checkout, just took her and walked out,”
Lazenko said.
A pimp’s control is so insidious, so grounded in psychological abuse, that it’s
present even when he is not.
“She still has a quota,” Lazenko said of when pimps go to jail. “They’re
conditioned. They are trained to continue on and report to him because
eventually he’s going to get out. If they don’t have their required money, they’re
going to suffer the consequences.”
Pimping is a twisted game, and breaking the rules brings penalties.
When one victim hid money
from Durr, she was locked for two
days in one of the kennels he
keeps for dog-fighting, and she
could barely walk when she was
let out, another victim told
investigators. This is believed to
have occurred in the Milwaukee
area, where Durr was known as a
pimp to law enforcement, an FBI
special agent testified in federal
court in Bismarck.
Lazenko said nearly every
trafficking case she’s seen in
North Dakota involved physical
violence. In severe cases, girls have
suffered broken jaws and other
facial fractures.
FREE FROM A PIMP,
BUT NOT FROM THE GAME
Jenny remembers once trying to
leave Alexander. He found her,
though, and kept her two days and
tortured her.
“He was really angry that I had
left him and [said] that I wasn’t
gonna leave him no more, and if I
ever tried to leave him again he
was gonna get my brothers and
sisters and my mom – he knew
where they all lived – and I better
not ever try to leave him again,”
she said. “Every time he looked at
me he’d just throw a shoe at me or
something.”
And then one last time, he
exploited her.
“He wouldn’t even let me wash
up. I still had blood … he just put
me out on the street and he told me
he’d be back in two hours and I
better have some money.”
That led her to dig out the card of
a compassionate cop and get
Alexander locked up. He went to
prison, but his control was still
there – his friend later saw her in
the parking lot of a Kmart, took
her money and beat her,
punishment for snitching.
Jenny needed protection. She
felt guilty because she wanted to
be the “ride-or-die chick.” So she
went back to the Fun Center.
And soon she met her next pimp.
 A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
A6 Monday, January 5, 2015 INVESTIGATIVE SERIES

ABOUT
THE SERIES
Forum News Service
takes on the issue of
STORY BY AMY DALRYMPLE AND KATHERINE LYMN FORUM NEWS SERVICE human trafficking and
female exploitation in this
seven-part
in-depth reporting series.
We explore the emerging
crisis as it unfolds in the
Oil Patch of western
North Dakota, as well as
in Minnesota and South
Dakota.

SUNDAY
A Booming Crisis
Understanding the
global human trafficking
crisis and its connection
to the Oil Patch of
western North Dakota,
where an influx of men
and money in recent
years has brought an
increased demand for
commercial sex.

TODAY
The Game
We take a deeper
psychological look at
pimp control, which is
the manipulation of

NATIVE often already vulnerable

women. Pimps are
masters at making
unwanted, perhaps

AMERICANS discarded women feel

wanted.

‘HUGELY AT RISK’ TUESDAY

Difficulty
in Detection

TO SEX TRAFFICKING How is human

trafficking detected?
Hospitals, hotels and
other groups are taking
various steps to detect
ERIC HYLDEN / FORUM NEWS SERVICE and report possible
human trafficking.
Traffic backs up on North Dakota Highway 23 west of New Town last fall. The city and other communities on the
Fort Berthold reservation are coping with the effects of rapid oil development.
WEDNESDAY
New Town, N.D. hears concerns about human trafficking at Fort Berthold
Prosecuting

A
s the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation reels from from law enforcement and social services. He’s also noticed
the impacts of producing a third of North Dakota’s it himself. Prostitution
oil, the reservation must add human trafficking to “You can’t help but sometimes, walking around the casino, Conversation, rather
its list of increasing hazards. you see individuals who would be highly suspect,” Fox said. than arrest and
“We’re in crisis mode, all the time, trying to figure out Young Bird, whose program has seen a significant increase interrogation, is one of
these new ways, these new crises that are coming to us that in domestic violence victims, has assisted some sex the tactics officers are
we never thought we’d have to worry about,” said Sadie trafficking victims, although the women and girls don’t using today to gain
Young Bird, director of the Fort Berthold Coalition Against usually identify themselves as victims. Some have returned information about
Violence. “No one was prepared for any of this.” to South Dakota reservations, she said. traffickers and put them
The Three Affiliated Tribes are implementing a new tribal “We see that most of the human trafficking victims want behind bars. It’s no easy
law designed to combat human trafficking at Fort Berthold. to leave, they just want to get out, they want to go back to task. While going after
traffickers is a priority,
“I’m really hoping to send a message that we are not where they came from, they want to go back somewhere
those cases are difficult
tolerating this on our reservation,” said Chalsey Snyder, a safe,” Young Bird said.
to prove.
tribal member who helped draft the law. The domestic violence program, which has a new shelter
Meanwhile, victim advocates and leaders of tribal nations in Mandaree and a new safe house elsewhere in the Bakken,
in neighboring Minnesota and South Dakota worry about primarily serves Indian women, but also will serve non-
reports of American tribal members.
THURSDAY
Indian women and girls A meth epidemic on the reservation contributes to the Making the
being trafficked to the violence Young Bird sees, including more severe sexual Connection
Bakken. assaults. The Internet has
Suzanne Koepplinger, “You can tell when there’s no meth around and you can tell become the new
former executive director when there’s a new shipment of meth around. The severity battleground for sex
for the Minnesota Indian is worse when the meth is gone,” Young Bird said. “When the trafficking. It’s where
Women’s Resource Center, new shipment comes, it’s more that they head out and they women and traffickers
said she started to hear leave and they leave their family with nothing. They spend go to promote sex for
anecdotal stories in 2010 all the money. Then when the wife is asking for money, that’s sale, but it’s also a
and 2011 about a boyfriend when the violence occurs.” powerful tool for law
or friend telling women and girls, “Let’s go to North Dakota Heroin is a major problem for the reservation, too, she enforcement in arresting
over the weekend and make some money.” said. In one sex trafficking case, the pimp kept the woman them.
“Because of poverty and high rates of mobility with compliant using heroin, Young Bird said. The woman did not
Native people, it’s not unusual for them to go up to White want to press charges.
Earth for a party and then say, ‘Let’s just buzz over to North “They all want to leave. They don’t want to stay around. FRIDAY
Dakota and see a friend of mine,’ and then she’s gang-raped And we can’t force them. We’re the advocates; we’re not law Squaring Up
over there,” Koepplinger said. enforcement. We’re there to support people,” she said. Law enforcement and
Since 2010, Indian girls in Minnesota have reported to A recent law change will allow the tribal court to prosecute victim service providers
service providers that family members or friends have tried human trafficking cases that don’t rise to the level of being in North Dakota are
to talk them into going to North Dakota. charged in U.S. District Court. identifying more victims
“Their girls go missing and then show up in the North “This law allows our reservation to take back ownership of sex trafficking, but the
Dakota child protection system, or are picked up by law and take back the prosecution and penalties,” Snyder said. closest dedicated
enforcement in Williston, Minot,” Koepplinger said. The law is called Loren’s Law in memory of Loren White shelter for trafficking
Erma Vizenor, chairman of the White Earth reservation in Horne, a behavioral health specialist from Fort Berthold who victims is more than 500
western Minnesota, said sex trafficking of women and girls used to deal with sexual abuse and sexual assault cases on miles away.
has been a concern there for a long time, and the proximity the reservation. White Horne was a driving force behind
of North Dakota’s oil boom adds to that concern. raising awareness about trafficking and working toward a
The White Earth DOVE Program (Down On Violence new law before she died in a vehicle accident in 2013, said
SATURDAY
Everyday) identified 17 adult victims of sex trafficking last Snyder, who continued her work. What’s Next?
year, said Jodie Sunderland, community advocacy The law also requires defendants to pay for any expenses Human trafficking will be
coordinator. incurred by the victim, such as drug abuse treatment. a major topic of
The DOVE program received funding through the “These victims can seek help and they can get help without discussion in the next
Minnesota Safe Harbor law and is connecting Indian youth having to worry about any financial obligations,” Snyder legislative session,
who are victims of sexual exploitation with services. The said, if the convicted trafficker has resources or such including a proposal to
efforts will include collaborations with Red Lake and Leech resources were seized. adopt a new uniform law
Lake reservations in northwest Minnesota. Statistics show that minorities represent a on human trafficking.
The vulnerability of Indian populations to become victims disproportionate amount of sex trafficking victims.
of sex trafficking, particularly at Fort Berthold with the That has been true in South Dakota, where the U.S.
impacts of the oil boom, is a major concern, U.S. Sen. Heidi Attorney’s Office has prosecuted sex trafficking cases JAN. 11
Heitkamp, D-N.D., said. involving several dozen The Documentary
“The grooming of the victims. About half of those WDAY’s Kevin
candidate for trafficking victims were American Wallevand digs deeper
tends to go to lower income, Indian women and girls. into sex trafficking in
tends to go to kids who’ve In most cases, the North Dakota in a
been victimized in the past, victimization did not occur 30-minute
so automatically that puts on the reservations, but in documentary-style
them in a category that is Sioux Falls and other larger news program, airing at
cities. 10:35 p.m. Sunday.
hugely at risk,” Heitkamp
“Most often, it is girls and
said during a discussion
some women who come
hosted by the McCain
Institute for International
from the reservation to
Sioux Falls,” said. U.S.
ONLINE
Leadership and moderated Many additional stories,
Attorney Brendan Johnson. photos, videos and
by Cindy McCain. “When they are here, if more can be found at
Mark Fox, recently elected they’re coming without a lot traffickedreport.com
chairman of the Three of resources, they’re often
Affiliated Tribes, said he targeted by these guys.”

THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND

 THE THIRD
OF SEVEN
PARTS
The Forum O F FAR GO - M O O R H E A D
A FORUM
NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE
SERIES

RED FLAGS
Training underway to help employees,
the public, detect signs of sex trafficking

A
young woman tells domestic violence
advocates she feels trapped with an older man.
He’s the only person who can inject her with
the heroin to which she’s addicted.
“Abusive boyfriend,” the advocates conclude, and they
set about trying to help her. They don’t see that his
control of her may have an even darker purpose.
Elsewhere, a young woman tells her doctor she has
had more than 500 sexual
partners in her 19 years.
INSIDE He writes it off as promiscuity.
JENNY’S Then there’s the man who
JOURNEY parks a block away from a
Drugs, violence transitional living center where
part of “the life,” many former runaways and
PAGE A5 homeless young adults live.
Staff members see him as the
possessive boyfriend of a resident, and they keep an eye
out.
All were witnessing possible sex trafficking without
initially realizing it.
Around North Dakota and the country, training is
underway to help people identify potential trafficking
in every interaction a victim may have with others.
These incidents have been used as examples in training
sessions where North Dakotans are getting crash
courses on what forms sex trafficking can take and how
to know when a victim may be right before their eyes.
It’s part of a larger fight against a crime that many say
has an everyday presence in the Bakken Oil Patch. A
large part of the education in North Dakota requires
overcoming a reluctance to believe that such a horrific
crime can happen “in our backyard.”
Experts say the red flags are everywhere, if you’re
aware.
RED FLAGS: Page A4

STORY BY KATHERINE LYMN

AND AMY DALRYMPLE;
ILLUSTRATION BY TROY BECKER
FORUM NEWS SERVICE

ADDITIONAL CONTENT AT TRAFFICKEDREPORT.COM

COLLISION
From Page A1
driven there with jogged
through a snowy ditch
alongside County Road 4
from the crash site toward
their car. They sped off
shortly thereafter.
Kittery Wakefield, a
clerk at the Tesoro gas
station in Larimore, said
townspeople had been
cycling through the gas
station since the collision,
talking about the accident.
Wakefield is in the same
grade as the 17-year-old
girl who died in the crash.
While she did not know
her well, Wakefield said
the students who had
come through the gas
station suggested their
class go as one to the girl’s
funeral, to pay their
respects.
Larimore Mayor Ray
Fegter, who has been a
volunteer firefighter in
Larimore for 38 years,
struggled to find the right
words in describing the
accident.
“And you think, ‘I hope it
never happens here,’ ” he Trusted
said. “Well, today it did.
It’ll take a few days and Financial Advisor
who knows how many
months for the community
to recover from this. It’ll Jason Jaeger
be a memory we wish we Business & Ag Banker • 701.235.4248
never had.” Fargo Downtown | jjaeger@americanfederal.net

The Forum Tuesday, January 6, 2015 A10


A4 Tuesday, January 6, 2015
ABOUT
THE SERIES
Forum News Service
takes on the issue of
human trafficking and
female exploitation
in this seven-part
in-depth reporting series.
We explore the emerging
crisis as it unfolds in the
Oil Patch of western
North Dakota, as well as
in Minnesota and South
Dakota.
SUNDAY
A Booming Crisis
Understanding the
global human trafficking
crisis and its connection
to the Oil Patch of
western North Dakota,
where an influx of men
and money in recent
years has brought an
increased demand for
commercial sex.
MONDAY
The Game
We take a deeper
psychological look at
pimp control, which is
the manipulation of
often already vulnerable
women. Pimps are
masters at making
unwanted, perhaps
discarded women feel
wanted.
TODAY
Difficulty
in Detection
How is human
trafficking detected?
Hospitals, hotels and
other groups are taking
various steps to detect
and report possible
human trafficking.
WEDNESDAY
Prosecuting
Prostitution
Conversation, rather
than arrest and
interrogation, is one of
the tactics officers are
using today to gain
information about
traffickers and put them
behind bars. It’s no easy
task. While going after
traffickers is a priority,
those cases are difficult
to prove.
THURSDAY
Making the
Connection
The Internet has
become the new
battleground for sex
trafficking. It’s where
women and traffickers
go to promote sex for
sale, but it’s also a
powerful tool for law
enforcement in arresting
them.
FRIDAY
Squaring Up
Law enforcement and
victim service providers
in North Dakota are
identifying more victims
of sex trafficking, but the
closest dedicated
shelter for trafficking
victims is more than 500
miles away.
SATURDAY
What’s Next?
Human trafficking will be
a major topic of
discussion in the next
legislative session,
including a proposal to
adopt a new uniform law
on human trafficking.
JAN. 11
The Documentary
WDAY’s Kevin
Wallevand digs deeper
into sex trafficking in
North Dakota in a
30-minute
documentary-style
news program, airing at
10:35 p.m. Sunday.
ONLINE
Many additional stories,
photos, videos and
more can be found at
traffickedreport.com
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
Windie Lazenko, founder of 4Her North Dakota, takes a “selfie” at a Williston, N.D., truck stop to share with the
organization Truckers Against Trafficking. Lazenko plans to do truck stop outreach to raise awareness about sex trafficking.
RED FLAGS FROM BACK PAGE
“It’s one of the more perfect crimes against people because,
I mean, it’s laced with coercion, it’s laced with social stigma,”
said sociologist Tim Pippert, who has visited the Bakken from
Augsburg College in Minneapolis in his research on the social
effects of such rapid growth.
So it’s difficult, experts say, to identify trafficking victims
who often don’t even know they’re victims or who are warned
not to snitch, and with pimps who can be as good at
manipulating others as they are at manipulating the women
they control.
“If you haven’t seen it, realities are you’re looking in the
wrong place,” said Joy Friedman with Breaking Free, a
St. Paul organization that helps women trying to leave
prostitution. “It’s right in front of your face, actually.”
MORE THAN A CONTROLLING BOYFRIEND
Darianne Johnson is a strong believer in eyes. She says you
can tell a lot about a person that way. She once saw a victim of
sex trafficking speak and couldn’t believe how dead she
looked in her eyes.
“Her life was over.”
Highlighted by bright blue eyeshadow and blue-rimmed
glasses, Johnson’s eyes conveyed hope. And she needs a full
measure to counter the evil and abuse she sees every day as
director of Dickinson’s domestic violence crisis center.
But now she’s seeing some of the ugliness and despair
differently. Gathered with other advocates around a long table
in the center’s conference room one August morning, she and
her advocates reassess past cases, wondering ... could it have
been trafficking?
Crisis centers across North Dakota are doing the same,
looking for sex trafficking in cases they previously might have
identified solely as violent relationships, rape or controlling
boyfriends.
“A lot of times they don’t look at themselves as victims of
human trafficking. So it’s difficult to get that out of them when
that’s not how they see their situation,” says Nichole De Leon,
an advocate at the Dickinson center. “They call him their
boyfriend quite often, so you’re not assuming, ‘Well, that’s her
pimp.’ ”
Discussing the case of an older man injecting a younger
woman with heroin, a form of control, Johnson pauses.
“I never even thought of that as a trafficking case until just
now,” she says.
Advocates across the state say they see possible sex
trafficking only because they’re now looking for it.
At a sex trafficking summit in Bismarck this past November,
Mark Heinert, a program manager at Youthworks there,
described his lightbulb moment from about a year before.
A man would park about a block away when a certain
woman was staying at the transitional living shelter, where
many former runaways or formerly homeless people find
shelter.
“Our first inclination is we’ve got ourselves a possessive
boyfriend; we’ve gotta watch out,” Heinert said.
Staff members alerted law enforcement officers, and Heinert
later found out the man was actually the woman’s pimp.
“That wasn’t necessarily as large of a flashing beacon for
us,” he said, “you know, one year ago, five years ago, 10 years
ago, as it feels like it is right now.”
SEEING A VICTIM
Fifteen years ago, Grant Snyder thought of prostitution the
way many older beat cops did: It was a choice. The women
were just drug addicts. They should get real jobs.
Now a sergeant with the Minneapolis Police Department,
Snyder has trained thousands of officers, including hundreds
in western North Dakota, on how trafficking can look.
“I didn’t always see a victim,” he said.
But after a few interactions with victims, like when he found
a 16-year-old girl, who looked even younger, being prostituted
out of a crack house, his views and his policing changed.
“That journey for me was really an opportunity for me to
really see and challenge our own biases,” he said. “They don’t
make us bad people; they just make us uninformed.”
Cops may already have opinions about prostitution and the
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
ERIC HYLDEN / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
women in that life, and past interactions with law enforcement
can make a woman wary of them, too.
Snyder urges patience for cops handling trafficking cases,
with victims who may feel ashamed or who may not yet accept
that they have been exploited.
“One of the things I really try to teach cops is you’ve got a
golden opportunity to be the one person in these kids’ lives
that go into that situation and don’t ask for something in
return,” he said. “Don’t go in there hoping they’ll make your
case.”
Today, at trainings, sometimes after an overnight shift or on
their day off, police officers are looking back and realizing
they have seen sex trafficking. They just didn’t know it at the
time.
“I’ve been around human trafficking more than I’ve realized
and I think most law enforcement will say that,” said Art
Walgren, the Watford City police chief, at a training there in
October.
Learning the complex art of detecting and interacting with a
sex trafficking victim is even harder in western North Dakota,
where turnover and general busyness plague departments big
and small.
“We have a lot of very hardworking law enforcement
officers, very dedicated, but not always the most experienced,”
McKenzie County State’s Attorney Jacob Rodenbiker said.
Many Oil Patch police and sheriff ’s departments have a large
number of officers in their 20s who are working their first law
enforcement job.
The Williams County Sheriff ’s Office has had turnover rates
of between 12 and 17 percent each of the past four years, not
including jail staff. Department administrators fear that
turnover will be even greater after young, new hires, often
from Minnesota or other states, gain experience and find jobs
closer to home as the economy recovers.
Deputy Jake Manuel, one of the recent hires in Williams
County, said many deputies leave Williston after gaining
experience because their significant others don’t want to live
there or they get tired of living in an apartment in the
boomtown where housing is scarce and expensive.
“If that’s your experience base, how do you expect somebody
like that to be able to possess the kind of skills that they need
to talk to a victim about what will arguably be the most
shameful thing they’ll ever have to talk about?” Snyder said.
At the Watford City training session, then-New Town Police
Chief David Shawstad told the small crowd he may have
witnessed trafficking just a few days before.
What started as a domestic dispute in a car had some red
flags: The girl was much younger than the man, and she told
police the man didn’t let her talk to anyone.
“One thing after another and it’s like, this is what it is,”
Shawstad said.
With runaways being perhaps the most vulnerable to pimps,
John Vanek, a retired San Jose Police Department lieutenant
who now trains officers on trafficking, encouraged officers in
his tour of western North Dakota last fall to “screen” girls
when they return home to ask where they slept, how they ate.
“From what I learned today, it’s quite possible I have been in
contact with trafficking victims and I didn’t connect it,”
Burleigh County sheriff ’s Detective Troy Fleck said during
Vanek’s day in Dickinson.
At a training session conducted by the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security in Bismarck last fall, North Dakota
Highway Patrol Sgt. Chad Hermanson looked back on an
interaction more than a year old and thought about what he’d
do differently today.
When he pulled over an SUV, the 36-year-old potbellied man
just didn’t match the 18-year-old blonde girl sleeping in the
backseat, he told fellow law enforcement officers. But the man
said she was his girlfriend.
The girl had only a curling iron for what they said was a trip
to Washington state. She would be back by the weekend for
her high school prom. Thinking the man was trafficking
drugs, Hermanson sent in the information and, not having
anything else to hold him on, let him drive on.
Today he says he would’ve taken the girl aside to ask more
questions.
“I missed it; I wasn’t looking for it,” he said. “I wasn’t in the
mode for sex trafficking.”
STORY CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
‘NOBODY LIKES A PROSTITUTE’
Drugs, violence
part of ‘the life’
By Katherine Lymn
Forum News Service
T
he seed for prostitution was planted
before Jenny Gaines met “Alexander,”
her first pimp, at an arcade in
downtown Minneapolis.
But after him, she was truly stuck.
Alexander, whose middle name is used for
safety reasons, started brainwashing Jenny,
programming her to think she was made to do
prostitution.
“When you’re selling your body, you’re
selling yourself, your value, your morals,” she
reflects. “You’re putting that to the side and
letting somebody use you.”
After she helped police lock up Alexander,
she found herself beaten and robbed in a
Kmart parking lot. One of his friends was
punishing her for snitching.
So she went back to the arcade where she had
met Alexander and looked for reassurance,
protection, love. She found drugs and another
pimp.
Over 28 years in prostitution, Jenny would go
to treatment 13 times. But for the most part,
therapists and doctors just didn’t understand:
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Since moving to North Dakota from Florida in
the fall of 2013, Windie Lazenko has worked to
increase awareness of sex trafficking, including
giving talks for church and school groups.
Lazenko founded 4her North Dakota and is
assisting sexually exploited women and girls in
western North Dakota.
She has led some training sessions in the
Bakken using materials provided by an
organization called Truckers Against
Trafficking.
Lazenko said 4herND plans to do outreach at
area truckstops to equip truckers and business
owners to identify victims and how to respond.
“Truckers have an amazing ability to call the
hotline and identify victims,” Lazenko said.
EVERYDAY INTERACTIONS
Private businesses also have implemented
training to help employees detect victims.
Minneapolis-based Jefferson Lines is working
with Snyder on a training guide for bus drivers,
dispatchers and others to handle situations that
just don’t seem right.
“All forms of transportation have been
affected by this,” said Bonnie Buchanan, a
former vice president with the bus company.
From Amtrak, which has since 2012 trained its
employees in signs of trafficking, to the
Department of Homeland Security’s “Blue
Lightning” campaign for airline personnel,
workers in various modes of transportation are
joining the fight.
Some hotels and motels, too, mandate training
for employees. But the bigger chain companies –
the ones that don’t want sex trafficking attached
to their names – are more likely to educate
employees than the smaller establishments,
where a “Do Not Rent” blacklist might be as
involved as they get.
From the corporate cafeteria at the Carlson
Center outside Minneapolis, Brenda Schultz
explained how different employees would see
trafficking differently.
The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, where
Schultz is the director of responsible business
for the Americas, includes the Radisson and
Country Inn and Suites chains.
On the front end at reception, a victim may
not make eye contact, the man may speak for
her and the pair might not have luggage,
Schultz said.
Within the rooms, housekeepers may see an
excessive use of towels, or a lot of cellphones.
Schultz once had a meeting set with Sgt.
Snyder, but it fell through.
“All of a sudden, I get a call and he’s like, ‘I’m
in North Dakota tracking two girls from
Minneapolis,’ ” she said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, of
course.’ ”
SEEING THE SIGNS IN A PATIENT
A majority of more than 100 sex trafficking
victims surveyed came into contact with health
care professionals during their victimization,
according to a 2014 study.
None of those surveyed was rescued as a
result of their interactions with health care
personnel.
Dr. Jeff Barrows, an Ohio obstetrician and
gynecologist who has trained health care
professionals in signs of trafficking since 2006,
said he too missed signs early in his career.
One patient, a 19-year-old woman, told
him she’d been with more than 500 sexual
partners.
Barrows said he wrote the woman off as
promiscuous, not asking further questions.
“Those biases can cause us to jump to
conclusions or assumptions before we
really should,” Barrows said. “So we will
misclassify.”
Emergency room workers and other
practitioners can be in the unique position
of seeing a person one on one, or even
seeing physical effects of trafficking, such
as pimp tattoos or cigarette burns.
“I think they come away thinking
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
She couldn’t be in prostitution
and be sober.
Whether it was Bacardi-
Cokes or street drugs, Jenny
numbed herself with
substances that further trapped
her.
It’s common in “the life.”
“I knew that I couldn’t get
out of drugs as long as I was
This is the life of Jenny
still doing tricks,” she says
Gaines. Lured
today.
Before long, the prostitution trafficking at age 14, she
overtook her. She thought that spent 28 years in a life of
was who she was. prostitution. Throughout the
At times, she found it past six months, Forum News
glamorous. She went to every Service has spent time
major city. She didn’t see why getting to know Jenny. This is
any girl wouldn’t want this life. her story.
Other girls told her they got
into prostitution to be like her.
But after years of abuse at
the hands of pimps, and fraying relationships
with her children, Jenny started to see the
reality of prostitution.
“I just got harder and harder. Then, I had
maybe five felonies on my record, four kids,
four different dads, four failed relationships.
Each relationship got to be more and more
violent. I felt like the only person that would
love me would be a pimp,” she said. “They’re
the only ones that would love a prostitute. Or
Williams County Deputy Jake Manuel investigates a possible domestic disturbance last October in
the vicinity of a new RV park near Williston, N.D.
something very weird is going on but ‘I don’t
know what it is,’ ” Barrows said. “You can’t
know what it is if you haven’t had the category
for it created in your mind.”
The Department of Health and Human
Services launched a pilot program last year to
train health care workers to identify victims of
human trafficking. Training sessions were held
in Williston and New Town, N.D., in September,
along with much larger cities Atlanta, Boston,
Houston and Oakland, Calif.
“We have a problem,” Barrows told health
care workers in New Town. “We have a majority
of these victims that come in contact with us
and we’re missing them. That’s horrific.”
A victim’s perpetrator may insist on coming
into the exam room with her, providers learn,
and the victim herself may be overly
submissive. She may not know her address, or
even what city she’s in, as the stops on a pimp’s
circuit begin to bleed together.
In Williston, Mercy Medical Center CEO Matt
Grimshaw said that the hospital had not
confirmed any of its patients were victims of
human trafficking, but hospital officials felt it
was important to receive the training on
identifying victims.
“If there can be one safe haven for somebody
who’s in that situation to quietly reach out for
help,” he said, “it may be when they’re in a
hospital or they’re in a clinic receiving
treatment.”
Mark Bekkedahl, director of mission at Mercy
Medical Center, said some of the red flags – like
Tuesday, January 6, 2015 A5
tricks, they would love you, but
you don’t want to be in love
with a trick.”
And pimp after pimp drilled
into her brain that this is what
she was for, that if she tried to
leave, she would fail without
him. Violence and threats kept
her from leaving if it ever did
cross her mind.
into sex “You buy into that nobody
will ever want you but them.
You start believing that. Not
only that, if you do get away, it
always seems like he finds you
anyway,” she said. “You’re just
asking for more trouble if you
get away. He’s going to find you.
Just be good, don’t piss him off,
do what you’re supposed to do
and you won’t be hurt.”
The social stigma of prostituting meant
there weren’t hands to help her up when she
fell. More often she was met with judgment, or
people who just wanted to exploit her more in
exchange for helping.
“Nobody likes a prostitute. We’re
homewreckers. We’re nasty, dirty,” she said.
“Nobody has any respect for a prostitute, or
any empathy.”
ERIC HYLDEN / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
a patient not knowing her address – would not
necessarily indicate trafficking in Williston,
where a high percentage of the population is
transient.
“I think the training heightened our
sensitivity to take a step back and ask that
question, ‘Is this just weird because it’s
Williston, or is there something going on?’ ”
‘THE HEAD OF THE MONSTER’
While training is underway in various sectors,
many say the general public, with more eyes
than any one company or police department, is
what really needs education.
“They see a lot more than we do,” McKenzie
County sheriff ’s Deputy Troy White Owl said.
About half of states require signs bearing the
National Human Trafficking Resource Center
hotline number be posted in certain places,
according to Polaris, a national anti-trafficking
organization that runs the hotline. In Texas, for
example, bars must post it.
One proposed law for this legislative session
requires the signs in North Dakota’s rest stops
and hospitals.
Officers, meanwhile, are recording any
incidents so if a case is being built down the
road, investigators can look at history and see
any other interactions with a trafficker or
victim, be it a traffic stop or an arrest.
Dickinson police Det. Sgt. Kylan Klauzer said
officers there are learning to look a little closer,
like inside the car at a traffic stop.
“You got a car and you got one guy and three
girls, and maybe they’re from out of state and
their stories don’t match up completely as to
why they’re here,” he said. “Through the course
of those types of things, you can figure out that
OK, well maybe they’re up here for
prostitution.”
At weekly intelligence meetings across
agencies, Klauzer said, the names and other
details of those incidents are discussed.
“The females’ names are important, but
you’re always trying to look for the head of the
monster here,” he said, “so who is our person
that we maybe believe is bringing them in
here?”
 THE FOURTH
OF SEVEN
PARTS
The Forum
LATE EDITION
O F FA R GO - M O O R H E A D
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 2015 INFORUM.COM
A FORUM
NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE
SERIES

PROSECUTING
BUYERS, SELLERS
Some shift focus to men, seek help for women

ILLUSTRATION BY TROY BECKER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE

Thanks.eps

The men pictured above have been convicted in state or federal courts of offenses related to human trafficking. Some are convicted of
trafficking offenses and others are convicted of attempting to pay for sex with minors. All are either North Dakota cases or involved a victim
who was trafficked in North Dakota.

STORY BY AMY DALRYMPLE AND KATHERINE LYMN FORUM NEWS SERVICE INSIDE
JENNY’S

‘A
my” walks into the hotel lobby, thinking she is under – is 19, though her ad says 21. She tells the agent she has JOURNEY
meeting a man who had arranged to pay $300 for sex been in the life since she was 13. The changing market
on an out-call basis. Her mother worked as a prostitute. in North Dakota,
Before she can get to the room, the supposed “john” “I just grew up with it,” she says with a shrug. PAGE A5
– Rob Fontenot, an undercover agent with the North Dakota Amy, with her Michael Kors bag and Rock Revival jeans, boasts
Bureau of Criminal Investigation – shows her his badge and about the money she makes and her addiction to designer labels. SAFE HARBOR
takes her outside to his unmarked SUV. He is there just to talk, How much money are we talking about? the agent asks.
he reassures her, not to make an arrest. Amy thinks for a moment.
LAW IN ND
In the front seat, Fontenot shows Amy the Backpage ad that $95,000, she says. Between January and April. State seeks to
decriminalize
brought them together this October afternoon in Williston. Some of the oil guys are dirty and gross, she says, but there’s
prostitution for
“Give me a call now … don’t miss the opportunity to an upside.
minors, PAGE A6
experience true bliss,” reads the ad posted at 2:10 a.m. that day. “I get more money when they stink,” she says.
She doesn’t recognize the ad as hers until Fontenot points out
the phone number. PROSECUTION: Page A4
“Oh, then yeah, it was mine,” she says.
She posts a lot of ads, she tells Fontenot,
and uses fake photos.
Amy – the name she advertised

ADDITIONAL CONTENT AT TRAFFICKEDREPORT.COM

INSIDE TODAY’S
FORUM
Larimore man dragged injured
student out from under bus
Investigators: No medical condition
involved in cause of bus-train crash
By Sarah Volpenhein Richard Lunski said at his home Tuesday
Forum News Service in a subdivision just outside of Larimore.
LARIMORE, N.D. – Richard and Susan The Lunskis were among the first peo-
Lunski walked out their front door to the ple at the crash site within 100 yards of
sound of children screaming in pain.
their home, where a BNSF train and a
“The train was coming. We hear a
whistle blow, and then we hear a boom,” BUS: Back Page

Business .............. A8-9

VARIETY: Trends in
taste: Take a bite out
of this year’s tempting
flavor forecast.
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Today’s weather Classifieds ........ C4-12
왖 2° Comics.................. C11
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A4 Wednesday, January 7, 2015
ABOUT
THE SERIES
Forum News Service
takes on the issue of
human trafficking and
female exploitation
in this seven-part
in-depth reporting series.
We explore the emerging
crisis as it unfolds in the
Oil Patch of western
North Dakota, as well as
in Minnesota and South
Dakota.
SUNDAY
A Booming Crisis
Understanding the
global human trafficking
crisis and its connection
to the Oil Patch of
western North Dakota,
where an influx of men
and money in recent
years has brought an
increased demand for
commercial sex.
MONDAY
The Game
We take a deeper
psychological look at
pimp control, which is
the manipulation of
often already vulnerable
women. Pimps are
masters at making
unwanted, perhaps
discarded women feel
wanted.
TUESDAY
Difficulty
in Detection
How is human
trafficking detected?
Hospitals, hotels and
other groups are taking
various steps to detect
and report possible
human trafficking.
TODAY
Prosecuting
Prostitution
Conversation, rather
than arrest and
interrogation, is one of
the tactics officers are
using today to gain
information about
traffickers and put them
behind bars. It’s no easy
task. While going after
traffickers is a priority,
those cases are difficult
to prove.
THURSDAY
Making the
Connection
The Internet has
become the new
battleground for sex
trafficking. It’s where
women and traffickers
go to promote sex for
sale, but it’s also a
powerful tool for law
enforcement in arresting
them.
FRIDAY
Squaring Up
Law enforcement and
victim service providers
in North Dakota are
identifying more victims
of sex trafficking, but the
closest dedicated
shelter for trafficking
victims is more than 500
miles away.
SATURDAY
What’s Next?
Human trafficking will be
a major topic of
discussion in the next
legislative session,
including a proposal to
adopt a new uniform law
on human trafficking.
JAN. 11
The Documentary
WDAY’s Kevin
Wallevand digs deeper
into sex trafficking in
North Dakota in a
30-minute
documentary-style
news program, airing at
10:35 p.m. Sunday.
ONLINE
Many additional stories,
photos, videos and
more can be found at
traffickedreport.com
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
PROSECUTION FROM A1
Her brother, a truck driver, told her about the oil boom in
North Dakota. There’s money to be made up there, he said. So
she packed her designer clothes and made the move.
Her brother thinks she works at Wal-Mart.
“I like my job,” Amy says, a little defensively, a little
defiantly. “I have fun doing it. I get to party all the time.”
Fontenot, the BCI’s point person for human trafficking, is
skeptical. He sees that her sparkly pink fingernails are
broken. She has a cut on her arm, bruises on her leg.
She tells him that two days earlier, she fled topless from a
Williston house after a “trick” attacked her. They had
undressed, she says, and he asked for his money back.
No refunds, she insisted.
Then he pounced on her, she tells Fontenot, and injured her
shoulder, took her sweatshirt, broke her pepper spray and
stopped her from dialing 911.
“He just went crazy on me,” she said, adding that she thinks
he may have been on meth. “I could not get out of the house.”
She rattles off the address to Fontenot, but she said she did
not report it to local police. The home is owned by an oilfield
services company, according to county records.
Amy said she freaked out and cried after escaping to her car.
The incident triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder, a
result of being kidnapped and held hostage, she tells
Fontenot. She said she’s also had a .22-caliber gun shoved
inside of her, leaving her unable to have children.
The last time Amy was with law enforcement was during an
investigation of a man who had been her trafficker. He
pleaded guilty this fall in federal court in another state to
forcing women to travel to several states, place ads online and
engage in prostitution.
“He was a
(expletive)
monster,” she said.
“He never hit me
because I know
my place and I
play my role very
well.”
Amy insists she
doesn’t have a
boyfriend or pimp
now.
“Every single
girl you see on
Backpage besides
me probably has a
pimp.”
Not Amy, she
says. “Because I’m
smart.”
A NEW
APPROACH
While four years
ago the bureau
was involved in a
sting targeting
and arresting
women working in
prostitution in
Williston, the
focus today is on
investigating the
traffickers.
Fontenot
responds to
Backpage ads in
the guise of being
a “date,” and uses
his time with the
women to see if
they are being
trafficked, or
know someone
who is. He works
on building
relationships with
women to get
information on
traffickers while
trying to identify underage victims.
The BCI allowed Forum News Service reporters to sit in the
backseat during some of the interviews.
“A lot of times they won’t tell you about their boyfriend or
their pimp, but they’ll tell you about one they used to have or
their friend’s pimp,” Fontenot told other law enforcement
officers at a training session this fall.
Conversation rather than arrest and interrogation is one of
the tactics law enforcement officers are using today to try to
identify traffickers and put them behind bars.
It’s no easy task.
If prosecutors could show in court some of the ways people
compel women into prostitution, literally showing the terror
and violence they employ, putting the pimps and traffickers
away likely would be much easier.
But they can be subtle, those who manipulate women and
girls into a life of forced sex for money. They say they will
harm a girl’s parents or siblings, a woman’s child. They have
embarrassing photos and will see that they are published.
They say they will tip authorities to a woman’s shaky
immigration status, threatening deportation.
“At the end of the day, these are very difficult cases to
prove,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Puhl said at a recent
human trafficking summit in Bismarck. “It doesn’t take a lot
of skill or talent to find weaknesses in a human trafficking
case.”
To convict someone of human trafficking at the federal
level, prosecutors need to prove that the defendant compelled
someone to engage in commercial sex acts through the use of
force, fraud or coercion. (Those elements are not required if
the victim is under 18, just as “consent” is no defense in a
case of statutory rape.) State statutes have similar
requirements for prosecution of adults.
Most often, the human trafficking cases involve subtle
forms of coercion, not physical restraints or chains.
“Admittedly, these are the most difficult forms of coercion
to prove. You can’t take a picture of it. You need the victim’s
cooperation. You need the victim’s testimony,” Puhl said.
“Only the victim can explain the climate of fear. Only the
victim can describe why she did it.”
But first, authorities need to identify victims, who often
don’t consider themselves victims or are too fearful to speak
up about their trafficker.
“Without a ‘bad guy,’ it’s hard for us to make a case,”
Fontenot said.
If officers encounter a woman engaged in prostitution, it
may take six or seven positive interactions before the woman
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
tells officers about her trafficker, Fontenot said. In such
cases, “much more of a rapport-building has to take place.”
If the woman talks to law enforcement several times, she
often will give inconsistent statements, giving a defense
attorney an opportunity to point out holes in the case, said
Christina Sambor, an attorney and project coordinator for
FUSE, North Dakota’s anti-trafficking coalition.
“That gives somebody on the other side of a case a lot to
work with,” Sambor said.
TRAUMA IN TESTIMONY
Marlyce Wilder, state’s attorney for Williams County, which
charged its first human trafficking case last year, said she
anticipates the challenges to prosecuting these cases will be
similar to challenges in domestic violence.
“Many believe they are in love with the abuser, that the
abuser loves them, and perhaps they may even have children
in common with him,” Wilder said. “During the grooming
process, the abuser has likely convinced the victims that no
one else cares about them – at least not the way that he does.”
Heidi Carlson, a former victim of sex trafficking, was
married to her trafficker and has children with him.
“He was a brutal, brutal, brutal man,” said Carlson, who
was trafficked for 10 years, including in the Dakotas. “He
tried to kill me several times, and I actually should be dead.”
The man was never prosecuted.
“I would never testify against him. I was too scared,” said
Carlson, who lives in the Twin Cities.
Years later, some encouraged Carlson to take civil action
against the man. But she did not want intimate details of her
life to be analyzed in a court proceeding.
“To put my life out there would not have been healing for
me,” Carlson said.
The serious trauma that victims experience makes it
difficult for
them to testify.
Before Levell
Lee Durr
pleaded guilty in
his federal
trafficking case,
one victim’s
psychologist
wrote to the
court urging
that the trial be
delayed because
testifying would
be extremely
traumatic. The
woman is
“severely
psychologically
fragile,” the
psychologist
wrote, and is
dealing with
trauma
flashbacks,
anxiety and
trouble sleeping.
Tim Purdon,
U.S. attorney for
North Dakota,
emphasizes the
importance of
victim services.
That was key in
convicting Durr.
“If we’re going
to hold the bad
guys, the
traffickers, the
people who trade
in flesh
responsible,
we’re going to
need these folks
as witnesses,”
Purdon said.
Societal issues
or
misconceptions held by juries and judges may also factor into
getting a conviction for human trafficking.
“I think jurors have stereotypical views of very many types
of cases, and this is just one of them,” said Kelly Dillon,
deputy Ward County state’s attorney. “When most people
hear human trafficking, they think of the 12-year-old locked
in the basement. And that’s just not what we’re seeing out
here.”
In an upcoming trial in Moorhead, prosecutors plan to call
two expert witnesses on sex trafficking to educate jurors
about why victims are often reluctant to seek help and
reasons why victims may continue to be loyal to their
traffickers.
“Jurors without any knowledge of sex trafficking are likely
to misunderstand or be confused by this and other behavior,”
writes Pamela Harris, chief assistant Clay County attorney,
in court records.
PROSTITUTES AS VICTIMS
While some say attitudes are changing about prosecuting
women for prostitution, North Dakota agencies arrested
more women for prostitution last year than in 2013.
Of the 55 misdemeanor prostitution arrests through the
end of November last year, 20 were women and 35 were men,
according to a Forum News Service analysis of cases filed in
state and municipal courts.
In addition, at least five men were charged in 2014 with
felony human trafficking or promoting prostitution offenses
in North Dakota district courts. In North Dakota federal
court, four were charged with sex trafficking-related offenses
in 2014, in addition to more than a dozen cases that worked
through federal courts related to men attempting to pay for
sex with minors.
In Grand Forks, police are reluctant to arrest a woman for
prostitution, said Lt. Jim Remer. Instead, detectives there
have been doing “knock and talks” for the past 1½ years,
similar to what the state BCI’s Fontenot does now.
Police do not arrest the women during these conversations
unless they have outstanding warrants or other
circumstances that would warrant an arrest, Remer said.
“In the old days they were called the prostitutes,” Remer
said. “I think you need to look at them and view them as
possibly victims of trafficking.”
Puhl encourages agencies to make that police policy.
STORY CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
Women engaged in prostitution seem to target Williston’s Vegas Motel, likely because they can solicit customers from the motel lounge, says
general manager Jeff Smith. But prostitution is “rampant” in Williston and an issue all hotels are dealing with, says Smith, president of the local hotel
association. “It’s everywhere. You can’t just point the finger at us.”
ND MEN CHANGE WITH THE OIL BOOM
By Katherine Lymn
Forum News Service
B
efore she ever visited North Dakota during the oil
boom, Jenny Gaines posted an ad on Backpage
“just to see” if men would call her phone.
The rumors were true.
“It just rang off the hook,” she said.
The numbers of men away from their families, a general
lack of female companionship and large paychecks added
up to big potential.
When Jenny visited the Bakken between 2009 and 2011, This is the life of Jenny
she would spend a week in Williston or Minot and earn Gaines. Lured into sex
$15,000. The going rate for sex at that time was $300, which trafficking at age 14, she
means she was having sex with about 50 men a week. spent 28 years in a life of
“I was pretty good at getting them in and out of there in prostitution. Throughout the
10 minutes. I made a lot of money,” she said. past six months, Forum News
At first, she would stay at Williston’s Vegas Motel. But it Service has spent time
soon was “too hot” there and she worried about getting getting to know Jenny. This is
arrested. her story.
Jenny would book her hotel room online, pay with a
credit card and only stay one night before moving to a new
hotel. She’d bring luggage and a laptop to look like she was traveling on
business. And she’d wear glasses and dress more conservatively than
other women in prostitution.
“I worked real hard to not look like I was doing that,” she said.
Jenny was familiar with North Dakota long before the Bakken boom.
In the 1990s, she worked the dancing circuit, performing in strip clubs
across North Dakota. Her trafficker would send drugs with her to sell to
other dancers and the locals.
“I made money two ways when I was out there,” she recalled.
STORY CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
“It’s not the right thing to do to charge a victim of prostitution just because
we can,” Puhl said, adding that it works against police efforts to cut into the
sex trade.
“Who’s going to cooperate with law enforcement? Is it going to be the law
enforcement officer who’s arrested that prostitute every time he’s encountered
her and thrown her in jail?” Puhl asked. “No, she’s going to trust that
individual who has picked her up six, seven times and each time he has given
her his card and said, ‘Call me, I’m here for you, I care about you and I’m ready
to work with you when you’re ready to leave this lifestyle.’ ”
STINGS TARGET WOMEN, TOO
About a third of the women arrested for prostitution in North Dakota last
year were caught up in undercover sting operations, an examination of records
shows.
In Minot, where police do the most enforcement of prostitution, accounting
for about half of the state’s prostitution arrests in 2013 and 2014, stings have
targeted women placing ads as well as the men buying sex.
“We have to go about it that way,” said Dillon, the deputy state’s attorney,
adding that the stings were in response to complaints about prostitution from
the public. “If we’re looking at ultimately getting the pimps, I think we have to
go about it that way.”
In other cases in Minot and elsewhere, women were arrested after police
received reports from hotels or encountered the activity while on patrol.
In a Williston case, a woman convicted of prostitution spoke Mandarin
Chinese, but her Backpage.com ad was in English. That, along with suspicions
about an older man who posted the woman’s bond, later led city prosecutor
Taylor Olson to call the FBI and report that the woman likely was not acting
alone. The woman was deported before authorities could investigate further,
Olson said. The suspected john, who jumped out a hotel window when police
arrived, was not charged.
In Divide County, the far northwest corner of the state, deputies found a man
and woman engaged in sex for pay in a pickup while another man observed
from a different vehicle, holding onto $1,500. Deputies cited all three.
An examination of court records also showed
that two women convicted of prostitution in
municipal court in 2014 were considered
victims in other courtrooms.
In one case, 67-year-old Marvin Rex Lord was
convicted in Burleigh County District Court of
facilitating prostitution by arranging to meet
men in a Bismarck hotel lobby and directing
them to a room he had rented with his wife. A
hotel manager witnessed the activity and
called police.
To county prosecutors, the woman, a
42-year-old Asian woman who did not speak
English, was a victim, said Pamela Nesvig,
assistant Burleigh County state’s attorney. But
in Bismarck Municipal Court, the same
woman was considered a criminal, charged
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
Wednesday, January 7, 2015 A5
PHOTO BY ERIC HYLDEN; ILLUSTRATION BY TROY BECKER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
Jenny had a “sugar daddy” in Dickinson in the 1990s
who would come see her at the Minot strip club.
“He’d always come to (now-closed) Stockmen’s and he’d
round up some girls to take out to Dickinson on the
weekend,” Jenny said. “It would be after the bars close.”
The clients then were primarily local men.
“Everything out there is like all these farmers, and the
wives don’t know,” she said. “Farmers … and dirty old
men, just dirty old men.”
During her more recent trips to North Dakota, many
customers were kids who had money and didn’t know
what else to do with it.
“ ‘You only want $300? Here, how about $500?’ ” she
recalled one saying.
But many were rowdy and carried guns.
“It got kind of scary in the end. Some of them, if they
wanted their money back, they’d get violent,” Jenny said.
“Half of them were always drunk or high, and I don’t know
how they did it, but they had to be at work the next morning.”
The rough days in the Oil Patch were some of Jenny’s
last in the life of prostitution. She didn’t have a trafficker for her last trips
West, but felt somewhat trapped when she needed money, not ever having
had another job and often facing stigma when she reached out for help.
She turned her last trick in Williston around Christmas 2011.
“Since that oil boom happened … It used to be nice farmers, maybe a
couple weirdos or goofies, but they were nice. These oil people are idiots
and obnoxious and ignorant. Really have a sense of male entitlement. And
I never felt more like a commodity than I did this last trip or two in North
Dakota. I just said I’m never coming back.”
with Class B misdemeanor prostitution. She pleaded guilty to the charge and
was given credit for the 14 days she served in jail.
Lord pleaded guilty to the Class C felony and was given credit for the 50 days
he served in jail with the remainder of a three-year sentence suspended.
In another case, Minot police arrested a woman for prostitution twice in
August, once during a sting and once after a hotel reported suspicious activity.
Minot police had encountered the same woman in June while assisting with a
human trafficking investigation. She is identified as a victim in a federal court
case involving Durr, a Milwaukee man who pleaded guilty to recruiting two
women to work as prostitutes in North Dakota.
When police questioned the woman in June, she gave them a false name and
ID and later said her pimp forced her to assume a false identity, court records
say. She did not cooperate with the human trafficking investigation.
“She did say, though, that law enforcement doesn’t understand, that it is
similar to brainwashing, that she’s so frightened that she can’t explain her
circumstances,” FBI Special Agent Bruce Bennett testified during a hearing in
U.S. District Court.
Durr was in jail when the August prostitution arrests occurred.
The police officer who arrested the woman for prostitution the second time
said that when he questioned her, she said she was working alone. In that
incident, she also was arrested for possessing drug paraphernalia. That charge
is still pending, along with a charge for bail jumping.
Windie Lazenko, a victim advocate who offered assistance to the woman, said
she should have been offered services rather than convicted of prostitution.
“The fact that Durr wasn’t controlling her at that time might have been a
reason. But we know they don’t just stop. Just because their pimp is locked up
doesn’t mean they stop,” Lazenko said.
ADDRESSING THE DEMAND
The number of men prosecuted in North Dakota for purchasing sex has
increased each of the past several years.
In Minot, a sting in September resulted in the arrest of 10 men for
misdemeanor prostitution over the course of 8½ hours. Capt. Dan Strandberg
said police hope such stings will deter demand for prostitution.
“It’s market-driven, it’s supply and demand, and if there is not a demand,
then hopefully there won’t be a supply,” Strandberg said.
Most men convicted of misdemeanor
prostitution in North Dakota plead guilty to
the charge and receive a fine or suspended jail
sentence.
In cases where the men responded to ads for
sex with minors, they face more serious
charges of human trafficking at either the
state or federal level.
Officials often prefer to take the cases federal
because the penalties are more severe. In
North Dakota, recent federal sentences
resulting from stings led to prison sentences of
one to five years, plus at least five years of
supervised release and requirements to
register as a sex offender.
Rylee Nelson contributed to this report.

A6 Wednesday, January 7, 2015
ND SEEKS TO DECRIMINALIZE
PROSTITUTION FOR MINORS
By Amy Dalrymple
Forum News Service
J
uveniles who engage in commercial sex in
North Dakota would be considered victims
and not face punishment under a new bill
drafted for introduction at the 2015 state
Legislature.
Under that same bill, adults convicted of sex
trafficking would face increased penalties.
If approved, North Dakota would join a growing
number of states with “Safe Harbor” laws
decriminalizing prostitution for minors.
FUSE, North Dakota’s anti-sex trafficking
coalition, will focus this legislative session on
educating people about what the law means, said
Christina Sambor, project coordinator for the
coalition.
Legislators and others should understand that
the proposal is not a broad legalization of
prostitution, Sambor said, but aims to help
authorities and advocates rescue children who
have been lured or coerced into prostitution while
increasing pressure on adults who exploit them.
In other situations, such as statutory rape, the
law already puts the responsibility for sexual
relations between adults and minors on the adult,
she said.
Prostitution is illegal in 49 states. In Nevada, the
commercial sex trade is legal as regulated by the
state government.
Legalization of prostitution, as a way to control
how and where it is practiced, has long been
debated. There has been vigorous international
debate over the so-called Swedish Model, which
makes it a crime in that country to purchase sex
but not to sell it. In New Zealand, both the
purchase and the sale of sex are decriminalized.
The proposed change to North Dakota law, which
will be introduced by the state Uniform Law
Commission, is more comprehensive than the
state’s current statutes against human trafficking,
said South Central Judicial District Judge Gail
Hagerty, a member of the commission.
“It’s a complete package in that it provides
criminal penalties, it provides an opportunity for
civil lawsuits to recover damages and it provides a
component for prevention of human trafficking,”
Hagerty said.
The proposal is modeled after the act adopted by
the national Uniform Law Commission. A goal of
adopting the uniform act is so trafficking laws are
similar from state to state.
“This is an interstate operation,” said Rep. Larry
Klemin, R-Bismarck, a uniform law commissioner.
“The more that we can have the laws consistent
from one jurisdiction to another, the better it is to
coordinate all of the activities involved.”
Immunity for minors – often referred to as Safe
Harbor – is just one aspect of the proposed law. It
includes immunity for prostitution offenses as
well as forgery, theft or insufficient fund or credit
offenses if those crimes were committed as a
result of being a human trafficking victim.
“I think you don’t want to get in a situation
where a young person has that kind of record or is
carrying around some kind of stigma,” Hagerty
said. “It’s going to prevent them from achieving
things in life.”
Aaron Birst, executive director for the North
Dakota State’s Attorneys Association, said
prosecutors support the uniform law but may
propose some technical amendments during the
legislative session.
“Overall, the concept when you talk to
prosecutors statewide, they would agree that
human trafficking and the sex industry is at a
level that we’ve never seen before, and that clearly
needs some legislative action,” Birst said.
Human trafficking is to be a major topic at the
association’s annual meeting later this month.
North Dakota state’s attorneys are using the
state’s existing human trafficking statute to
prosecute cases now, Birst said.
Most prosecutors would look at minors involved
in commercial sex as someone who needs services,
not prosecution, even without a Safe Harbor law,
he said.
“In reality, we probably wouldn’t be prosecuting
those juveniles anyway,” Birst said.
With a Safe Harbor law, the juveniles would not
go through the juvenile court system, but would
instead be provided with services, Sambor said.
The question for North Dakota to figure out,
however, is how to handle minors identified as sex
trafficking victims outside the juvenile justice
system.
“Are our existing services ready to take that on?”
Sambor said.
As the proposal is currently written, North
Dakota’s new law on human trafficking does not
include any funding to serve victims. A separate
proposal being discussed would allocate $500,000 to
a pilot program for victim services, and the
SD LEADS NATION WITH MOST LIFE TERMS FOR TRAFFICKING
By Katherine Lymn
and Amy Dalrymple
Forum News Service
S
ince 2009, prosecutions through the office of
Brendan Johnson, U.S. attorney for South
Dakota, have put three traffickers in prison
for life – the most of any federal district.
Johnson said the business and population
growth in the Bakken oilfields doesn’t appear to
have had much direct effect on trafficking in
South Dakota, where the problem exists but has
been more home grown. But prosecutors have
heard several victims from South Dakota say they
were brought to North Dakota.
Johnson’s office has seen several dozens of
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
CARRIE SNYDER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
Minneapolis police Sgt. Grant Snyder specializes in sex trafficking cases and has led training
sessions for North Dakota law enforcement.
governor’s budget does include funding for a prostitution courts similar to drug courts with
victim advocate within the Bureau of Criminal specialized judges who work with prosecutors and
Investigation. defendants to figure out what services are best,
In Minnesota, where a Safe Harbor law took Vanderhoof said.
effect in August, about $5 million in state funding In Minnesota, some law enforcement agencies
has been dedicated to housing for trafficking refer women to programs such as Breaking Free in
victims and other services in the past two years. St. Paul rather than arrest them for prostitution.
Erin Ceynar, corporate and major gifts officer “I would hope that city prosecutors and police
for the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, said would understand by now that if you’re 19 years of
funding to support Safe Harbor is critical. Ceynar, age and you’re engaged in being prostituted – that
a native of Williston, N.D., who is paying close they would recognize that for the vast majority of
attention to the human trafficking issue in her these women, they’re not really choosing to do
home state, said if North Dakota approves a Safe this,” Choi said.
Harbor law this session, the big question will be Grant Snyder, a sergeant with the Minneapolis
where minor victims of sex trafficking go for safe, Police Department who has trained law
secure housing and trauma services. enforcement in North Dakota, said while some
“North Dakota needs lots of money for victim want to consider every instance of prostitution as
services. There really isn’t infrastructure for this.human trafficking, that isn’t the case.
It needs to be built,” Ceynar said. “Not every crime of prostitution is human
trafficking. It’s not,” Snyder said.
EDUCATION STILL NEEDED But Snyder, who has interviewed more than
North Dakota Attorney General Wayne 1,000 women and girls involved in prostitution,
Stenehjem said he plans to support the proposed said it’s more effective for law enforcement to
uniform law. In addition to immunity for minors, connect them with services than to make an
it allows adults charged with prostitution to assert arrest. However, that’s challenging in a state like
an “affirmative defense” that they were victims of North Dakota that doesn’t have enough services to
trafficking. meet the need.
“My view is if you’re a victim of human Nationally, women continue to be arrested for
trafficking, you’re not prostitution rather
a criminal and you than being treated as
“
should not be charged trafficking victims,
as such,” Stenehjem Vanderhoof said.
said.
“We still continue to
The proposed law see more women being
also would allow
human trafficking My view is if you’re a victim of arrested for
prostitution than
victims to seek
restitution and to
human trafficking, you’re not a traffickers being
arrested or, frankly,
pursue civil actions.
Polaris, a national
criminal and you should not be purchasers of sex
anti-trafficking charged as such. being arrested,”
Vanderhoof said. “I
organization,
encourages states to WAYNE STENEHJEM still think that there’s
adopt Safe Harbor a lot of assumptions
ND ATTORNEY GENERAL
laws, which vary by and misconceptions
state. that need to be
In South Dakota, challenged.”
prostitution is decriminalized for juveniles 16 and For the “affirmative defense” portion of human
under. trafficking laws to be effective, the victims need
John Choi, county attorney for Ramsey County to know the opportunity to assert that defense
in Minnesota, said that state’s Safe Harbor law exists. Ideally, prosecutors, judges, public
was key to helping prosecutors go after traffickers. defenders and law enforcement, as well as victim
Even before the law took effect this past August, advocates, need training about the law,
law enforcement handled the juveniles in the child Vanderhoof said.
protection system rather than in juvenile court. More people nationally are supportive of
No state has a Safe Harbor-type law for adult children involved in commercial sex being
victims of sex trafficking, but some states and treated as victims, but not adults, she said.
local communities have approaches that come “That level of understanding and recognition
close, said Britanny Vanderhoof, chief of policy around adult victims of sex trafficking is not
counsel for Polaris. happening as widely, so that is still a level of
For example, New York and Louisiana have education we need to work on,” Vanderhoof said.
victims, but most “are South Dakota kids, and prosecutors saw evidence of organized
they’re very vulnerable kids,” he said. “That’s trafficking in their interviews with women
how these traffickers – they move into the caught up in the sex trade.
community, they’re part of the community – and “There really was a network of these traffickers
that’s how they identify” and target people. in Sioux Falls. These girls went from multiple
Many of the victims come from the American traffickers and these traffickers sometimes
Indian reservations in the state, including the worked together,” Johnson said.
Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which straddles Of the 15 people sentenced to life for sex
North and South Dakota. In one case there, a trafficking minors since 2003, South Dakota’s
woman would offer “johns” a trade: sex with her three represent the most of any federal district,
niece in exchange for gas and beer money. said Michael Osborn, chief of the FBI’s Violent
Johnson’s first sex trafficking case – also South Crimes Against Children unit.
Dakota’s first – came in 2009, six months after he “People are sometimes surprised” by that,
became the state’s U.S. attorney. Six months later, Osborn said in a recent interview with Forum
another case popped up, and investigators and News Service.
 THE FIFTH
OF SEVEN
PARTS
The Forum LATE EDITION
O F FAR GO - M O O R H E A D
THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2015 INFORUM.COM
A FORUM
NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE
SERIES

CONNECT
IN A CLICK The Internet opens a world
of possibilities for pimps,
but it opens doors for
law enforcement, too

INSIDE
JENNY’S
JOURNEY
‘The second part’
finally arrives,
PAGE A5

TRAFFICKING
STINGS
For agents, willing
buyers easy to find,
PAGE A5

STORY BY
KATHERINE LYMN
AND AMY DALRYMPLE;
ILLUSTRATION
BY TROY BECKER
FORUM NEWS SERVICE

T
alking to seventh-graders in the small town
of Scranton, N.D., this past November,
Windie Lazenko told students that even
they aren’t immune from pimps.
They may not be in a big city and they may have
safe, secure homes, but potential traffickers may be
watching every time they log online, she warned.
“With the Internet, every single one of you kids
is at risk,” said Lazenko, who herself was first
prostituted when she was around their age.
Lazenko’s November visit to the school was part
of her ongoing work in western North Dakota,
fighting the increase in prostitution and
trafficking brought on largely by the oil boom.
It’s an unlikely topic, one many of the kids in
the town less than 300 hadn’t heard about before
Lazenko’s talk. But increasingly across western
North Dakota, communities are opening their
eyes – or rather, being forced to see that
commercial sex is all around them.
To many who remember history, the sex trade is
no surprise: These are mining towns after all, used
to a “work hard, play hard” approach to life and
aware that companionship for hire is available.
But this time, the prostitution “track” isn’t a
certain street
corner or strip. It’s the
Internet. Backpage and other
more obscure sites host the ads
that connect johns and women.
It has put Backpage, the most
well-known of the sites, at the
center of a legal and political debate.
While many are quick to blame
the Internet for helping prostitution
flourish, others point out it’s a new
tool for investigators to help crack
down on the crime.
“With pimps advertising on the
Internet, they out themselves and now
they’re trackable,” said Lois Lee, founder of
Children of the Night, a California-based
nonprofit that rescues children from pimps.
In online stings, agents post ads, posing as
pimps, and communicate with potential johns in
increasingly common operations throughout
western North Dakota.
They see incredible demand.
CONNECT: Page A4

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in bus crash was trying to save others
Cassidy rushed to front when driver slumped over, Sandstroms say
By Sarah Volpenhein ter, Cassidy Sandstrom, Board, confirmed the mes- what happened in the
Forum News Service rushed to the front of the sage was written by the moments leading up to the
LARIMORE, N.D. – The bus when Max Danner, the Sandstroms. crash from other students
parents of the 17-year-old 62-year-old school bus driv- The message conflicts on the bus.
girl killed in the train-bus er, “slumped over” in his with what North Dakota Seventeen-year-old Cas-
collision out- chair, with the bus stopped Highway Patrol investiga- sidy Sandstrom, a senior at
side Lari- on the railroad tracks east tors have said, namely that Larimore High School, was
more, N.D., of Larimore. they believe Danner’s driv- seated at the back of the bus
Monday say The email’s contents were ing was not impaired by any when she “realized what
their daugh- posted to Facebook and kind of medical condition, was happening” and rushed
ter died try- were shared more than 1,000 at least at this point in the to the front of the bus, ush-
ing to save times from one Facebook investigation. ering the other students
the busload of user’s page as of 10 p.m. “Our thoughts right now toward the emergency door
Cassidy students from Wednesday, with hundreds are he failed to provide a at the back of the bus, the
Sandstrom an oncoming of social media users hail- safe stopping distance,” Lt. email says.
train. ing Cassidy Sandstrom as a Troy Hischer, of the High- In the email, the Sand-
In an email to family and hero. way Patrol, said on Tuesday. stroms say their daughter
friends, Judy and Paul Jennifer Johnson, presi- The Sandstroms say in the
Sandstrom say their daugh- dent of the Larimore School email that they heard about TEEN: Back Page

A4 Thursday, January 8, 2015
ABOUT
THE SERIES
Forum News Service
takes on the issue of
human trafficking and
female exploitation
in this seven-part
in-depth reporting series.
We explore the emerging
crisis as it unfolds in the
Oil Patch of western
North Dakota, as well as
in Minnesota and South
Dakota.
SUNDAY
A Booming Crisis
Understanding the
global human trafficking
crisis and its connection
to the Oil Patch of
western North Dakota,
where an influx of men
and money in recent
years has brought an
increased demand for
commercial sex.
MONDAY
The Game
We take a deeper
psychological look at
pimp control, which is
the manipulation of
often already vulnerable
women. Pimps are
masters at making
unwanted, perhaps
discarded women feel
wanted.
TUESDAY
Difficulty
in Detection
How is human
trafficking detected?
Hospitals, hotels and
other groups are taking
various steps to detect
and report possible
human trafficking.
WEDNESDAY
Prosecuting
Prostitution
Conversation, rather
than arrest and
interrogation, is one of
the tactics officers are
using today to gain
information about
traffickers and put them
behind bars. It’s no easy
task. While going after
traffickers is a priority,
those cases are difficult
to prove.
TODAY
Making the
Connection
The Internet has
become the new
battleground for sex
trafficking. It’s where
women and traffickers
go to promote sex for
sale, but it’s also a
powerful tool for law
enforcement in arresting
them.
FRIDAY
Squaring Up
Law enforcement and
victim service providers
in North Dakota are
identifying more victims
of sex trafficking, but the
closest dedicated
shelter for trafficking
victims is more than 500
miles away.
SATURDAY
What’s Next?
Human trafficking will be
a major topic of
discussion in the next
legislative session,
including a proposal to
adopt a new uniform law
on human trafficking.
JAN. 11
The Documentary
WDAY’s Kevin
Wallevand digs deeper
into sex trafficking in
North Dakota in a
30-minute
documentary-style
news program, airing at
10:35 p.m. Sunday.
ONLINE
Many additional stories,
photos, videos and
more can be found at
traffickedreport.com
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
PHOTO BY CARRIE SNYDER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
CONNECT FROM A1
Agents had to shut down a fall 2013 sting in Dickinson
because the responses came to the Craigslist and Backpage ads
so quickly that the arrests soon overwhelmed officers.
“It’s mind-blowing,” Dickinson police Det. Sgt. Kylan Klauzer
said of the general demand. “We’re definitely not immune to it.
It’s here, and it’s close.”
Agents say if they had the resources to run operations more
often, they would easily catch more johns.
A Forum News Service analysis of data collected by
independent group Marinus Analytics shows escort ads on one
prominent website have not only grown tremendously in North
Dakota, but that in recent months they’ve surpassed the
amount of ads in Minnesota, where Duluth and the Twin Cities
are recognized longtime trafficking hubs.
“We don’t know how many cases there are, we don’t know
how many prostitutes there are, we don’t know how common
this is,” North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said
in an interview. “We just know when we do a sting, we never
have a shortage of people who are looking.”
THE DEBATE OVER BACKPAGE
On an average day in fall 2014, Backpage had pages of
commercial sex ad galleries for Oil Patch cities. North Dakota
frequently has 150 to 200 ads every day, with Williston and
Minot being the most popular cities.
But still, the demand outpaces supply. Women say when they
post an ad in the state, the phone rings off the hook, and right
away. The posts even occasionally include offers to do “out-
calls” to smaller towns like Belfield, Stanley and Tioga.
“If it disappeared tomorrow, I’d be happy,” Sen. Heidi
Heitkamp, D-N.D., said of Backpage at a Bismarck sex
trafficking training in September.
But talk of simply shutting Backpage down is quickly met
with concerns from many fighting trafficking, who say that
would simply lead to the ads popping up on smaller sites less
likely to cooperate with investigations.
The Association of Attorneys General successfully pressured
Craigslist to shut down its adult listings page in 2010. Now the
majority of state attorneys general, including Stenehjem, have
taken on new frontrunner Backpage, which has resisted taking
down its “escorts” ads. The company says the ads would just
migrate to international or more obscure sites, hindering law
enforcement efforts. When Craigslist shut down, its ads just
migrated elsewhere, including to Backpage, and a similar
phenomenon could happen if Backpage shuts down, except the
ads would go deeper underground.
Liz McDougall, general counsel for Backpage, has been the
carrier of an unconventional message: Yes, the site houses
prostitution ads. But it’s responsible about it, responding to
subpoenas quickly and reporting possible cases of trafficking
to law enforcement, who can then take advantage of the
footprint criminals leave online.
She expanded on that in a statement she wrote for Forum
News Service:
“Unless the Internet is wholly shut down, the end result of
this strategy will be that our children are advertised through
offshore websites who do not endeavor to prevent such activity,
who do not report potential cases of exploitation to law
enforcement, who do not expeditiously cooperate with law
enforcement to rescue victims and arrest pimps – and who are
outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law enforcement so they can
thumb their noses at U.S. law enforcement requests, even pleas,
for evidence to find a child or stop a perpetrator.”
Talking by phone one November night from Lyon, France,
where she and McDougall had just attended an INTERPOL
conference on trafficking, Children of the Night’s Lee lauded
Backpage’s cooperation with law enforcement, saying it’s better
than any other social network.
Along with enabling a flourishing commercial sex trade, the
Internet marketplace can make the individual crime harder to
see. Before the Internet age, johns and the women would have
to go to a physical location to find each other, said Tim
Wittman, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s
Minneapolis office. “But with the Internet facilitating it,” he
said, “it can maybe escape the community’s notice on a wide
level.”
But the sites – like Facebook, with 1.3 billion regular users –
do also lead to criminals unwittingly documenting their crimes
in ways helpful to prosecutors.
Tim Purdon, U.S. attorney for North Dakota, said someone’s
own words can be “incredibly valuable evidence” against them.
Prosecutors used hundreds of chat logs obtained from
Facebook with a search warrant in the case against Darrin
Anderson, a Minnesota man now serving 12 years in federal
prison.
Anderson, in his mid-30s at the time, communicated with
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
“
I think this is especially
concerning here because the
defendant was in the home of so
many local adolescent girls via
their computers. He was in their
homes ... to sexually exploit them.
JENNIFER PUHL
ASSISTANT US ATTORNEY, ABOVE, ON
MINNESOTA MAN DARRIN ANDERSON, WHO IS
SERVING 12 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON
hundreds of girls using a fake Facebook profile, purporting to
be a cute younger boy. One conversation led to him arranging
commercial sex with a 13-year-old girl. Over roughly two years,
he engaged in 800 Facebook chat conversations with, most of
the time, 14- to 17-year-old girls in the Red River Valley region.
To get the girls to talk to him, he would say they had a mutual
friend, or she had “popped up” on his Facebook scroll, or he
just added her as a friend because she was attractive.
He would send them sexually explicit photos despite their
protest, and convince some to send pictures back.
“I think this is especially concerning here because the
defendant was in the home of so many local adolescent girls via
their computers,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Puhl said at
Anderson’s May 2011 sentencing. “He was in their homes … to
sexually exploit them.”
The case showed how easily predators can find their prey
with the Internet: Of the roughly 800 girls Anderson reached
out to, 795 responded, Puhl said at a sex trafficking conference
in Sioux Falls last August.
“I was shocked to see how many of these girls communicated
with him,” she said.
Emily Kennedy, CEO of Marinus Analytics, said the goal of
the project that involves analyzing online ads was to see how
technology has opened new avenues for criminals, especially
pimps. “Technology really enables them to expand their
market, to keep their identities safe while still exploiting these
girls,” she said.
When grouped with South Dakota and Minnesota, North
Dakota’s share of ads on one prominent ads site has grown
substantially, according to an FNS analysis of Marinus’ data. In
2012, North Dakota made up 12.4 percent of the ads in the three
states, and through November of last year, the Peace Garden
State made up 45 percent.
Now Marinus works with various law enforcement agencies
to find evidence or establish timelines for trafficking
investigations.
Speaking at a sex trafficking conference in Sioux Falls last
year, Facebook’s Monika Bickert acknowledged how sites like
hers can be attractive to pimps for recruiting victims and then
threatening or coercing them, or to arrange transactions. But
Bickert, head of global policy management with the website,
said there’s another way to look at it.
“They may feel the Internet is a really powerful tool for
them,” she said, “but I have to say I think the Internet is a
much more powerful tool for those who are fighting against
human trafficking.”
‘WHY IS IT OUR BUSINESS?’
Leaders in the fight against sex trafficking say the root
problem is society’s willingness to accept the buying of sex,
and that “boys will be boys” – a problem amplified in an oil
boom.
“We have a whole culture now that has become, I think,
desensitized to the innocence of children, number one, and
desensitized to how horrific something like this is, in fact it’s
the kind of attitude of ‘Willing buyer, willing seller, why is it
our business?’ ” Heitkamp said.
“What I would tell them is probably some of the most horrific
victimization in this country happens in those relationships,
and so we have to have a change in societal attitude about
human trafficking, about prostitution and about the value of
children.”
Boomtown prostitution opens a lucrative field for pimps, who
know those selling sex willingly will never meet the demand,
and word of the oilfield market is spreading fast through pimp
networks and in larger cities like Minneapolis and Milwaukee.
The Internet fuels that.
Pimps are bringing their “stables” of women to North
Dakota, or sending women on their own after first filling their
heads with threats of violence or what will happen to their
families if they don’t come back with their quotas filled.
Motels and hotels around the Oil Patch have had to maintain
blacklists of women they suspect of operating there, and john
stings show how easy it is to catch the low-hanging fruit: men
cruising the Internet.
Agents say they hope to get to the traffickers eventually, but
that in the meantime, the stings may deter some men who,
lonely but wealthy, give in to curiosity and log on to the
“Backpage.com” they’ve heard so much about at work.
“The condition of the men here, they’re vulnerable and the
traffickers know that,” Lazenko said. “The men are being
exploited on a whole ’nother level.”
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
‘THE SECOND PART’ FINALLY ARRIVES
After pointing gun
at son, Jenny begins
to mend relationships
By Katherine Lymn
Forum News Service
J
enny Gaines’ mother remembers a child
who organized neighborhood activities,
got involved in acrobatics and theater
and did homework with “Little House on
the Prairie” on TV in the background.
Things changed as “little Jenny” grew into
her teens. She argued more, started making bad
choices and her years quickly became filled
with stays in various treatment programs.
Jenny longed for her father, who was the fun
one, and she was angry at her mother, who
made the rules. A “daddy’s girl,” she blamed
her mom for her parents’ divorce, not knowing
about her dad’s addiction issues.
“All of a sudden there she was; it’s like a
person I didn’t really know, like this hardcore,
makeup, angry,” Diana Arrell, Jenny’s mother,
said. “I mean, she was such a delightful child. I
didn’t really understand who it was I was
seeing.”
Jenny’s years-long transformation out of the
dark life she had fallen into accelerated six
years ago when she pointed a gun at her then-
12-year-old son.
After doing something degrading a john had
requested, something she normally wouldn’t
do, so she could afford the cellphone her son
wanted, Jenny found her son had programmed
her number in the phone under a derogatory
name.
“
I was never going to shoot him. I only wanted to scare him,
but it was wrong. He was so afraid, because he’s seen me do
some pretty violent stuff and he didn’t know if I was going to
do it or not.
JENNY GAINES
ON POINTING A GUN AT HER THEN-12-YEAR-OLD SON
AGENTS: NO
SHORTAGE
OF WILLING
BUYERS
By Katherine Lymn
Forum News Service
D
ing.
The arrival of texts and emails sounds
repeatedly from phones and laptops in
this bustling suite on the fourth floor of
one of Bismarck’s nicer hotels.
Local, state and federal law enforcement agents
have posted ads on Backpage and Craigslist,
offering sex for sale.
The group is dressed comfortably for the long
night ahead of them. They could be getting ready
for the weekend, but not this Friday night.
Instead they are actors, posing as pimps
marketing sex with underage girls.
Ding. Another potential customer, another
willing buyer.
The sting, led by Internet Crimes against
Children agents, was like many that occur in
western North Dakota now, whether on a small
scale within local police departments or on a larger
scale like this one. It’s one way experts say the
Internet opens doors for law enforcement in
addition to opportunistic pimps.
Forum News Service was granted special access
in September to observe a sting.
As a chat develops between the agents – posing as
pimps – and the men who are responding, the agents
reveal the offer for sex is actually with an underage
girl. Many of the men stop chatting and move on.
Others are undeterred or even enticed by the idea
of sex with an underage girl. They are instructed
on where to meet her.
The ones who show up at the hotel are directed to
a particular room, a room where a knock on the
door will make prosecutors’ cases and change the
men’s lives.
Ding.
In two “arrest rooms,” agents pass the time
playing video games and snacking until a john
comes knocking.
There’s a female agent in each room and she
serves as the voice behind the door.
When the would-be john enters, it’s “a guns-out
scenario,” says Rob Fontenot, a state Bureau of
Criminal Investigation agent who periodically
checks out each staging area, grabbing snacks from
each room as he goes.
And then the men are in handcuffs, and they see
the bulletproof vests, Tasers and badges.
“They physically can’t move a lot of times,”
Fontenot says. “We’ve had people say, ‘Just
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
Thursday, January 8, 2015 A5
“And the rage came over me
like, ‘How could you call me a
exploiting her, and she began
mending relationships with her
bitch? You have no idea what I children, including the son who
just did for this money to get
this [expletive] phone and
left after she pointed a gun at
him.
you’re going to call me
something that one of these
It was the start of what would
come to be known in Jenny’s
dudes used to call me? You, my circle as “the second part.”
son, my ride-or-die baby, Arrell, her mother, says she
really?’ ” heard a voice one day when she
She got a gun, pointed it at This is the life of Jenny was doing laundry and walked
him and told him to leave. Gaines. Lured into sex by her daughter, then just a
“I was never going to shoot trafficking at age 14, she baby.
him,” she says now of that cold spent 28 years in a life of Her daughter was going to
Friday night. “I only wanted to prostitution. Throughout the cause her a lot of pain, the voice
scare him, but it was wrong. He past six months, Forum News said, but there would be a
was so afraid, because he’s seen Service has spent time second part to the mother-
me do some pretty violent stuff getting to know Jenny. This is daughter relationship. The pain
and he didn’t know if I was her story. would only last a little while,
going to do it or not.” she recalls the voice telling her,
He packed his bags and left. and then Jenny would go on to
She wouldn’t talk to her son for help a lot of people.
a year. Arrell, who lives in
Jenny’s family told her over and over to let it Minneapolis now, never lost faith in what she
go, to accept that her son was gone. She moved calls the prophecy.
to an apartment in Minneapolis’ Uptown After her Jenny started wearing heavy
neighborhood, a place that reminded her of makeup, having angry fits and becoming
New York. violent, Arrell would dream about the daughter
And she tried to let it go, the hurt and who was. “Dream Jenny,” with her stringy hair,
emptiness. her little goggles, her yellow nightgown, would
She did all the drugs she wanted and turned visit from the Land of the Dead, Arrell said.
all the tricks she wanted. She found herself in
And through the rocky stays in treatment, the
violent relationship after violent relationship.
And then one day, she realized she wasn’t suicide attempts, the arrests – Arrell would
“there” anymore. She was all used up. think about the promise of the second part of
She was evicted from her apartment and fell the prophecy, and she would become impatient.
into a deep depression. Getting dressed took “I thought it was just gonna be a short time.
three hours, she said. What’s with this years and years and years and
With the next call that came, she made a years?”
friend who helped her without sexually In those difficult moments, Jenny would ask
herself, “Is this really the end of this?” Was her
personal struggle coming to an end?
“No,” she told herself. “My testimony isn’t
strong enough yet. No, ’cause I’m gonna help
people one day. It’s just not powerful enough.”
Jenny’s son was close to his grandmother,
who had told him about the vision. He would
turn to her and ask, “Well, do you think we’re
in the second part of the prophecy?”
It was in those moments, Jenny and her
mother say now, that the “second part” finally
arrived.
AMY DALRYMPLE / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
Local, state and federal law enforcement agents conduct a sting operation Sept. 5, 2014, at a
Bismarck hotel that targeted buyers of commercial sex with minors.
[expletive] shoot me. My life’s over.’ ” was forced to service 68 men in one day.
Back at a makeshift headquarters, agents chat “I realized hell’s gonna be full,” Fontenot said.
and plan, replacing ads as their host sites remove The sting that night, also a training exercise for
them. The TV show “Law and Order: SVU” – special officers who hadn’t participated in such an
victims unit – plays in the background. operation before, netted one human trafficking
Ding, ding, ding. arrest and another days later from the same set of
Another agent tracks requests in an Excel ads. Similar stings in the state have captured johns
spreadsheet, collecting the age of the child the man at rates that show the demand is there, and that a
thinks he’s meeting, the acts he has requested, the man’s first stop when looking to pay for sex is the
price he has agreed to pay. Web.
The 20 agents take eight hotel rooms,
three for the operation and five for sleep.
Many have traveled for this, and it’s a long
commitment.
Responses kept coming, questions,
requests for pictures.
The chats leading to potential meetups
quickly become nauseating, the men
rushing to see what they can get. The
younger a girl looks in a picture, the faster
the offers come, Fontenot says.
He doesn’t try to disguise his disgust.
“There’s no way of making sense of what
these guys want to do to kids.”
At a national training session Fontenot
attended to learn more about human
trafficking, he heard about a woman who
 THE SIXTH
OF SEVEN
PARTS
The Forum LATE EDITION
O F FA R GO - M O O R H E A D
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 2015 INFORUM.COM
A FORUM
NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE
SERIES

SQUARING UP
A CHALLENGE
Moving on from prostitution riddled with pitfalls

CARRIE SNYDER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE

Rowena Mathews, a survivor of sex trafficking and staff member at Breaking Free in St. Paul, right, leads people in the singing of “This Little Light of
Mine” during Breaking Free’s annual candlelight vigil on Oct. 14, 2014.

STORY BY AMY DALRYMPLE AND KATHERINE LYMN FORUM NEWS SERVICE

R “
owena Mathews threw herself a two-day that this community is gonna do for me. I am
party when she turned 30 last summer, nobody. I am just a crackhead prostitute, and that’s
soaking up every minute of fun at a all I’m ever gonna be. Kill me now; take me, you
lakeside barbecue. know? All I’m good for is sex and making money
Celebrating with family and going out dancing for the next man,” Mathews said. Because it was like there
with girlfriends meant more to Mathews than just
marking a milestone.
“I already felt dead, you know, I just felt dead and
I was just waiting for it to be official.”
is nothing that this
INSIDE She hadn’t thought she’d Now two years sober and a graduate of Breaking community is gonna
JENNY’S
JOURNEY
live to see 30.
Mathews became a sex
Free, a St. Paul organization that helps sexually
exploited women and girls, Mathews is proud of
do for me. I am nobody.
Breaking Free gives
Jenny an outlet,
trafficking victim as a how far she’s come. I am just a crackhead
teenager, pimped out by a “My 30th birthday was a symbol that life is
PAGE A7
mother addicted to drugs divine and that I deserve it,” Mathews said.
prostitute, and that’s all
A LACK OF
SHELTER
and ensnared in She treasures the birthday cards she received I’m ever gonna be.
prostitution. from co-workers.
ND has no housing That led the Twin Cities “That was special to me, that somebody cared ROWENA MATHEWS
for sex trafficking
woman into a life she now about my life and that I was here.” SEX TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR,
victims, PAGE A7
describes as “a whirlwind, ON GETTING OUT OF ‘THE GAME’
like a nasty Category 5 hurricane.” After about a
SQUARING UP: Page A6
decade of life on the streets, Mathews
had lost all hope and wished for death.
“Because it was like there is nothing

ADDITIONAL CONTENT AT TRAFFICKEDREPORT.COM

ND gay marriage suit may FORD

INSIDE TODAY’S
FORUM
hinge on US Supreme Court
By Archie Ingersoll
aingersoll@forumcomm.com
FARGO – The U.S. Supreme Court is
set to meet privately today to consider
for a second time this year whether to
hear any cases regarding the constitu-
tionality of state bans on gay marriage
– a decision that may affect the future of
a federal suit challenging the ban in
North Dakota.
There’s been no action in the North
NEW 2015
Dakota suit since early September,
ESCAPE S
when both sides submitted their final
briefs and U.S. District Judge Ralph
Erickson took the case under advise-
ment, court records show.
Joshua Newville, an attorney who
filed the suit on behalf of seven gay
couples, said he’s unsure why Erickson
has not yet issued an opinion but noted
MARRIAGE: Back Page

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A6 Friday, January 9, 2015
ABOUT
THE SERIES
Forum News Service
takes on the issue of
human trafficking and
female exploitation
in this seven-part
in-depth reporting series.
We explore the emerging
crisis as it unfolds in the
Oil Patch of western
North Dakota, as well as
in Minnesota and South
Dakota.
SUNDAY
A Booming Crisis
Understanding the
global human trafficking
crisis and its connection
to the Oil Patch of
western North Dakota,
where an influx of men
and money in recent
years has brought an
increased demand for
commercial sex.
MONDAY
The Game
We take a deeper
psychological look at
pimp control, which is
the manipulation of
often already vulnerable
women. Pimps are
masters at making
unwanted, perhaps
discarded women feel
wanted.
TUESDAY
Difficulty
in Detection
How is human
trafficking detected?
Hospitals, hotels and
other groups are taking
various steps to detect
and report possible
human trafficking.
WEDNESDAY
Prosecuting
Prostitution
Conversation, rather
than arrest and
interrogation, is one of
the tactics officers are
using today to gain
information about
traffickers and put them
behind bars. It’s no easy
task. While going after
traffickers is a priority,
those cases are difficult
to prove.
THURSDAY
Making the
Connection
The Internet has
become the new
battleground for sex
trafficking. It’s where
women and traffickers
go to promote sex for
sale, but it’s also a
powerful tool for law
enforcement in arresting
them.
TODAY
Squaring Up
Law enforcement and
victim service providers
in North Dakota are
identifying more victims
of sex trafficking, but the
closest dedicated
shelter for trafficking
victims is more than 500
miles away.
SATURDAY
What’s Next?
Human trafficking will be
a major topic of
discussion in the next
legislative session,
including a proposal to
adopt a new uniform law
on human trafficking.
JAN. 11
The Documentary
WDAY’s Kevin
Wallevand digs deeper
into sex trafficking in
North Dakota in a
30-minute
documentary-style
news program, airing at
10:35 p.m. Sunday.
ONLINE
Many additional stories,
photos, videos and
more can be found at
traffickedreport.com
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
“
Most of our girls that come to the ranch
have a lot of trauma. But when you’ve been
trafficked, the trauma is at even a different level.
CECE TERLOUW
DIRECTOR, HEARTLAND GIRLS’ RANCH
SQUARING UP FROM A1
SIMILAR TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Leaving a life of prostitution, or “squaring up,” as those in
the life often call it, is difficult and often takes several
attempts.
Mathews tried treatment programs, but none addressed
prostitution. That was until three years ago, when she
discovered Breaking Free, led by survivors of sex trafficking.
“I think a lot of us women that are in the lifestyle needed
that role model to show us that we could get out,” Mathews
said.
One of those role models was Joy Friedman, who came to
Breaking Free as a client in 2001 and is now the organization’s
director of training and outreach.
“Getting out, it’s very hard. Just like domestic violence,”
said Friedman, 51, who was trafficked to Minot, N.D., among
other cities in her teens and 20s.
“You’ll go back and forth with different things,” she said.
“You may not totally go back to the street, but you may still
deal with the individuals in that lifestyle.
“Detaching, it’s a process. Every one is individually based.
Depends on where you are, where your tenacity is, your
resilience. It depends on where your mindframe is. How much
damage is there and how much programming has really
happened to you. Some girls will never get out totally.”
Breaking Free offers a 14-week, intensive education group,
“Sisters of Survival,” that examines sex trafficking, the
impact it has on victims and issues related to addiction and
recovery.
Other educational groups focus on building strong families,
relapse prevention and life skills.
Breaking Free also provides advocates who meet one on one
with clients to address other issues they may also be dealing
with, such as poverty, homelessness and drug addiction.
Friedman and others do outreach to women in the life, but
sometimes it takes a long time to reach them.
“Some of the girls are so addicted to the lifestyle, the hustle,
the abuse, all of that, that they don’t know what to expect on
this side,” Friedman said.
HORSES AND HEALING
At the Heartland Girls’ Ranch in Benson, Minn., a focus
group for sex trafficking victims helps girls understand the
dynamics of what they’ve been through and that it wasn’t
their fault.
“Often, it’s not until the fourth, fifth group that they even
admit that this guy is not really their boyfriend,” Executive
Director CeCe Terlouw said.
The ranch serves girls with mental, emotional and
behavioral problems along with girls who are victims of sex
trafficking or sexual exploitation. The southwest Minnesota
program has served sex trafficking victims as young as 12.
Some girls take two years or more to fully understand and
process what happened to them, Terlouw said.
“They’ve been pretty much brainwashed into how they were
thinking.”
A focus of the ranch is the horse program, where girls find
healing, build self-esteem and learn a new skill. The ranch
emphasizes education and training so girls are less likely to
fall back into the hands of traffickers, pimps and johns.
“Girls that have been sex trafficked, they need to
understand that they can progress in their education and get
opportunities that can help sustain them for life in their own
families,” Terlouw said.
Each girl is assigned her own horse so she can form a bond.
“The horses respond to the girls in a way that’s almost
magical,” Terlouw said.
Like the girls, some horses come to the ranch from abusive
situations. Bridget Kinnell, director of the horse program,
recalls one girl who worked with a horse that kept wanting to
speed up because he was forced to do that in the past. The girl
realized it was like the horse was having a flashback and
reverting to old behavior.
“This was exactly her life,” Kinnell said.
In the past, the program has placed trafficking victims with
girls who are there for other reasons, but the ranch is adding a
new house specifically for trafficking victims.
“Most of our girls that come to the ranch have a lot of
trauma,” Terlouw said. “But when you’ve been trafficked, the
trauma is at even a different level. There just needs to be a
place that needs to be a little quieter, a place that’s set apart to
specific needs.”
SAFE HOUSING NEEDED
By her count, Windie Lazenko has helped nearly 20 women
and girls break free from sexual exploitation in the year since
she founded 4her North Dakota in Williston, N.D.
When authorities or service providers refer a possible
victim to Lazenko, she focuses on addressing her immediate
needs and keeping her safe.
Lazenko is herself a survivor, and she says providing a safe
house for victims of sex trafficking is critical, particularly
because domestic violence shelters in the Bakken are maxed
out.
“Even if I get a call from the FBI or law enforcement or the
hospital about a possible trafficking victim, we have nowhere
to take her for safety,” Lazenko said. “I’ve been taking the girls
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
CARRIE SNYDER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
home, personally, with me, which is not a good idea.”
Lazenko is seeking donations and grant dollars to build a
30-day safe house in the Bakken.
A 4her North Dakota shelter would not be designed to assist
women with mental health issues or severe addiction
problems, which are common among sex trafficking victims,
she said, so the facility would need to have transportation
available to take victims to those services, even if it’s going to
a detox center six hours away.
For long-term needs, Lazenko has connected victims from
North Dakota with Breaking Free or similar programs, such
as GEMS in New York.
At the Family Crisis Shelter in Williston, which focuses
primarily on domestic violence, Director Lana Bonnet
estimates the shelter has served nine trafficking victims in
the past year. In one case, the program spent $2,500 to $3,000 to
relocate a victim of sex trafficking, including buying her a
train ticket and clothing and wiring her $1,600 so she could get
into an apartment.
“She was scared,” Bonnet said. “She just wanted to get out
of here.”
Bonnet said she supports the idea of establishing a shelter
in the Bakken for sex trafficking victims. While the domestic
violence shelter will accommodate victims of sex trafficking,
it has been at full occupancy since 2009. The center does not
turn away women and children who are in need but works to
relocate them or place them in hotel rooms.
In addition to the lack of beds, placing victims of sex
trafficking and domestic violence together can create
challenges, Bonnet said. Members of her staff believe that
one woman who came to the shelter as a domestic violence
victim actually was there to recruit other women into
prostitution. Once the shelter got information from
authorities about the woman, she was offered relocation to
another city.
“I think what happens a lot of times is they are slapped or
hit to be bruised so that they can come in and say I’m a victim
of domestic violence,” Bonnet said. “I think the pimp is great
at doing that.”
In Dickinson, Darianne Johnson suspects they also had a
victim of sex trafficking recruiting other residents of the
domestic violence shelter, which estimates it has served 12
trafficking victims this year.
“Everything got very strange and then four women all left
and went together,” said Johnson, executive director of the
program.
Five years ago, Johnson said she would have thought the
women found an apartment together. But with the housing
shortage in the Oil Patch, that doesn’t happen anymore.
“It really makes me wonder,” Johnson said.
The YWCA of Cass Clay, the largest shelter serving women
and girls in North Dakota, has also had cases of women
believed to be recruiting other women from the shelter when
they’re in a vulnerable state, said Executive Director Erin
Prochnow.
The trafficking victims the YWCA has served have more
needs than victims of domestic violence or women struggling
with homelessness, Prochnow said. Most clients of the YWCA
meet with their advocates weekly or twice a week, but victims
of sex trafficking meet with their advocates a couple times a
day.
“Everything is just more intense as it relates to human
trafficking,” she said. “The challenge with mental health is
more significant, the challenge with substance abuse issues is
more intensive.”
RECORD OF THE PAST
Back in the Twin Cities, survivor Mathews says she wants
to be a sunflower, bright and tall and beautiful. But she fears
her criminal history, all of which she attributes to her being a
sex trafficking victim, will keep her stuck as a dandelion.
“Breaking Free has trained me not to live in my past no
more,” she said. “But something in society will always bring
me back there, and it kind of brings me under and makes me
discouraged.”
She wants to move into different housing, but her criminal
history stands in the way.
“A lot of renters around here won’t rent to you if you have
prostitution on your record, and it’s sad. It’s hurtful,”
Mathews said. “I feel like there’s still a chain wrapped around
my neck.”
Mona Livdahl, executive director of the North Dakota
Apartment Association, said that landlords have the legal
right to cite a criminal record as reason not to rent to
someone, but a misdemeanor conviction for prostitution
wouldn’t trigger a denial as much as a drug conviction. An
applicant’s credit score also tends to be a more important
factor, she said.
Mathews, who said she dreams now about traveling to all 50
states and becoming a community leader, also frets that she
won’t be able to find work outside of Breaking Free someday.
“This is the only place that would hire me,” she said. “I just
don’t see how I can expand like I want to.”
Anti-trafficking advocates, including the organization
Polaris, encourage states to adopt laws that would allow sex
trafficking victims to have criminal convictions expunged.
If she could prove her criminal behavior grew from her
being victimized, Mathews said, she knows she could break
free.
“I would be able to be that sunflower.”
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES Friday, January 9, 2015 A7

ND, SD LACK SHELTER, FUNDING

By Amy Dalrymple
Forum News Service

Y
ou identify a young woman, a girl
maybe, lured or coerced into a life of
sex for money in the hard,
scrambling towns of the North
Dakota oil boom. You see her, reach her, offer
her hope for something better, and she says
yes, please, help me.
What then?
Advocates fighting sex trafficking in North
Dakota say they sometimes wonder what the
point is of rescuing victims when those
people, often broke and broken, have
nowhere to go – no shelter where they could
begin to put their lives back together.
Law enforcement officers, social service
providers and others in North Dakota are
becoming better trained to identify victims

of human trafficking. But where to take
them after they’ve been rescued frequently
becomes a dicey question.
North Dakota and South Dakota are among
the 19 states offering no shelters for victims
of sex trafficking, a 2013 American Bar
Association report said.
In Minnesota, which recently implemented
a Safe Harbor law that treats minors engaged
in commercial sex as victims, 23 beds are
now dedicated to housing for underage sex
trafficking victims. That is an increase from
six beds, resulting from state funding as well
as private fundraising.
Breaking Free, a St. Paul program that
helps sexually exploited women and girls,
recently opened a shelter for underage
victims in addition to its adult housing
programs.
“One of the core pieces of our program is
housing because how do you begin to rebuild
your life if you don’t even know where
you’re gonna lay your head,” said Joy
Friedman, director of training and outreach
for Breaking Free.
Minnesota has invested $5 million in state
funding in 2013 and 2014 for housing for sex
trafficking victims, as well as other victim
services.
Currently in North Dakota, domestic
violence shelters are providing housing to
adult sex trafficking victims and
Youthworks, the state’s homeless youth
program, serves some minor victims.
But those programs are already struggling
to keep up with the state’s growing
population with funding levels that have not
increased, despite a growing state surplus.
Efforts are ongoing to raise private
funding for shelters for sex trafficking
victims.
Windie Lazenko, founder of 4her North
Dakota, would like to build a 30-day crisis
shelter in the Bakken.
Melissa Ragusse, executive director of a
group she founded called 1ForceUnited, is
working to raise funds to develop a 12- to 15-
bed housing facility for trafficking victims
in Cass County.
But some say more study is needed to
determine what the right model is for North
Dakota.
Rep. Gail Mooney, D-Cummings, said the
shelters work well in Minnesota, but that
state has a greater population with a
concentrated metro area.
“It makes sense for them to take money
and apply it directly toward victim-centered
type housing,” said Mooney, an active
participant in statewide anti-trafficking
discussions. “Here in North Dakota, maybe
that takes on a different look.”
In North Dakota, perhaps the answer is to
expand existing operations or services, she
said.
Community groups in South Dakota have
had similar discussions about whether a
shelter exclusively for trafficking victims is
feasible.
“It’s tougher for us in rural states like the
Dakotas because although this does
absolutely happen here, it’s not the everyday
“
A PLEA FOR THE FUTURE
Getting out is hard. It’s hard, but
it is possible. And what does ‘getting
out’ mean? Because we will never be
CARRIE SNYDER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE able to erase what we’ve been through.
Sex trafficking survivors Heidi Carlson, Breaking Free never promised that it
left, and Joy Friedman greet one another at
Breaking Free.
would go away from me. I’m a survivor
of terroristic torture, domestic
occurrence that you have in Minneapolis,
where you could have a large facility full of violence, rape, homelessness, drug
just trafficking victims,” said South Dakota addiction and incarceration. I’ve been
U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson.
Christina Sambor, project coordinator for beaten with baseball bats, two-by-
North Dakota’s anti-trafficking coalition
FUSE, said North Dakota will need to fours, metal pipes, gasoline poured on
seriously study the feasibility of sustaining me, surrounded by 15 guys, beaten and
a budget and staff for a secure shelter that
operates 24/7 and the other services that left for dead. How do you get me over
would need to be provided.
“Opening up a shelter is no small feat,” that? Breaking Free helped me learn
Sambor said. how to deal with it and not let it
John Vanek, an anti-trafficking consultant
who led training sessions in North Dakota control me. They showed me how it’s
this fall, said a shelter that opened in
California was well-intended but wasn’t able not me. It’s something I was involved
to fulfill the victims’ needs. The facility did
not provide clients with transportation to
in, but it’s not who I am. They helped
medical appointments, which were often one me see that I am a beautiful, black
or two hours away, said Vanek, a retired
lieutenant with San Jose Police Human strong woman and I got kids and
Trafficking Task Force.
“They’re warm and they’re fed and they grandkids and I got to see them all
have a place to sleep, but that only speaks to born and my life is fantastic. I matter.
potentially a small portion of their overall
needs,” Vanek said.
Meanwhile in North Dakota, crisis centers
JOY FRIEDMAN
have seen numbers of domestic violence and SEX TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR
sexual assault victims double and triple – in AND DIRECTOR OF TRAINING AND OUTREACH
the east as well as the Oil Patch, said Janelle FOR BREAKING FREE IN ST. PAUL
Moos, executive director of CAWS North
Dakota, which represents the 20 domestic
violence programs in the state.
Five of the eight domestic violence
shelters in North Dakota need to either
expand or build new facilities, Moos said.
Those facilities are in Dickinson, Williston,
Devils Lake, Grafton and Grand Forks. The
Minot shelter needs help to buy down
significant construction loans it took on to
expand, she said.
“They’re really at a critical stage right
now,” Moos said.
CAWS is in the beginning stages of
working with legislators on a proposal for
this legislative session to support or expand
the domestic violence shelters.
Regardless of whether a new shelter is the
answer or expanding existing programs,
victim service providers say the state needs
to provide funding to serve human
trafficking victims.
“We’re not receiving a separate source of
funding to provide what could be very long-
term and critical services that these human
trafficking victims need,” Moos said.

‘YOU CAN’T SLEEP WITH THAT MANY

PEOPLE A DAY AND NOT HAVE ISSUES’
By Katherine Lymn and included volunteer work she had done.
Forum News Service “It really empowered me,” she said.

A
fter nearly three decades in the life, Jenny
Gaines thought she would die a prostitute. She
really didn’t think she’d make it much into her
40s.
She had been recruited by a sex trafficker when she
was 14, and various pimps exploited her through her
youth and young adulthood. She had been to treatment 13
times for drug and alcohol addictions.
She was at times desperate to quit the life of
prostitution, but she kept running into what seemed like
insurmountable barriers. Sitting in a life skills class,
asked to put together a resume, she once again felt
overwhelmed.
In frustration, she threw the blank resume across the
room.
“I had never had a job in my whole life,” she said
recently, recalling the moment. “ ‘What do you want me
to put on there? That I’ve been laying on my back for 28
years?’ ”
But she stayed with it, encouraged by supporters at
Breaking Free, a St. Paul nonprofit she had been referred
to as a requirement for getting her driver’s license back.
They helped her put together a resume that was honest
“I just fell in love with Breaking Free because for me it
was the only place that I could talk about what was really
going on with me. Treatment and therapy are great, but
as soon as you bring up prostitution in any of those
places, there’s social stigma, the judgments happen.
“Sometimes the therapy sessions would turn into, ‘So,
how much money did you make? Wow, that’s tax-free?’ ”
she said. “I didn’t know how to get out of prostitution. It This is the life of Jenny
wasn’t until I got out of prostitution that I was able to Gaines. Lured into sex
maintain any sort of sobriety.” trafficking at age 14, she
Breaking Free helps women and girls escape spent 28 years in a life of
prostitution. There, where fellow survivors are in prostitution. Throughout the
charge, Jenny finally was able to talk about prostitution past six months, Forum News
without feeling judged. The program includes a 14-week Service has spent time
getting to know Jenny. This is
“Sisters of Survival” curriculum that only women who
her story.
have been in prostitution can attend.
“There’s all the caring people in the world, but if
you’ve never been in prostitution, you don’t understand
and you can’t relate to how I think or feel,” Jenny said.
“Prostitution makes you crazy. You can’t sleep with that
many people a day and not have issues.”

THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND

 THE LAST
OF SEVEN
PARTS
The Forum
LATE EDITION
O F FA R G O - M O O R H E A D
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2015 INFORUM.COM
A FORUM
NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE
SERIES

JENNY,
PART 2
‘Prostitution literally
ate me from the
inside out’

STORY BY KATHERINE LYMN FORUM NEWS SERVICE

PHOTO BY BENJAMIN EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY

A
“
n 8-year-old girl sits in the sixth
row of the ornate theater, sharing
INSIDE spirits, just as she was, unable to perform
simple tasks without energy and enthusiasm
popcorn and soda with her mom, WHAT’S NEXT? lent by others.
Jenny Gaines, behind her. North Dakota poised And when the women waver, wondering what
Behind Jenny sits her mother, and as the to consider new law they’re missing out on those streets, Jenny
lights dim, the three generations settle in on human trafficking
and additional law
helps them stay on track. Because she knows. I’ve been with the
for the show: a documentary produced by “We got your high-end strippers, your drug-
Breaking Free, a Twin Cities organization enforcement,
PAGE A5
addicted street walkers. We got your best of the best, the
that helps women trying to leave
prostitution.
homeless people who maybe just did it once
for a place to stay. I can relate to every single one of worst of the worst.
As the film begins, Jenny whispers with her friends,
other women who work at Breaking Free, as they see
these women, you know,” she said. “ ’Cause I did it all.”
“I’ve been on Lake Street, I’ve tried to commit There’s not one
faces they recognize.
Just a couple minutes in, a friend points at the
suicide five times, I’ve been to prison, I’ve been
homeless, I’ve been on crack, I’ve been in Vegas woman in here that I
screen and leans over to Jenny.
“She just died,” the woman whispers.
making $3,000 a night, I have had nice shit, no shit, ...
stuff, sorry,” she said. can’t relate to in
Soon, they see another one – a woman alive on-screen
but dead now.
“I’ve been with the best of the best, the worst of the
worst. There’s not one woman in here that I can’t some kind of way.
But not Jenny. relate to in some kind of way. And all I know is nobody
She is now three years out of a life of prostitution tried to make prostitution work harder than me. I
JENNY GAINES
that took her to rough places near and far, including really wanted to be successful and great at it. And I SEX TRAFFICKING SURVIVOR,
the oil boom counties of western North Dakota. She couldn’t make it work. I could not be happy in ABOVE, ON WORKING WITH
uses her story today to help others still caught in prostitution. Prostitution literally ate me from the WOMEN AT BREAKING FREE
dangerous, demeaning situations she knows well. inside out.”
As an advocate at Breaking Free, Jenny helps other
women get medications they need, set up therapy JENNY: Page A4
appointments or secure a valid form of
identification. They are often broken

ADDITIONAL CONTENT AT TRAFFICKEDREPORT.COM

NEW 2015
FORD
ESCAPE S
BISON GOING FOR 4TH
STRAIGHT TITLE TODAY
North Dakota State vs. Illinois State
Noon today on ESPN2
COMPLETE COVERAGE INSIDE
왘 Bison assistant coach, ex-NFL QB finally
reaches a national title game, BISON GAME DAY
왘 Bison fans rally in Frisco before game, PAGE A7
왘 Ex-Bison ties to the NFL obvious as pros
pay a visit to team prior to today's championship,
PAGE D1
왘 NDSU players try to keep focus on the present
as talk of dynasty emerges again, PAGE D3

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 A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
A4 Saturday, January 10, 2015 INVESTIGATIVE SERIES

ABOUT
THE SERIES
Forum News Service
takes on the issue of
human trafficking and
female exploitation
in this seven-part
in-depth reporting series.
We explore the emerging
crisis as it unfolds in the
Oil Patch of western
North Dakota, as well as
in Minnesota and South
Dakota.

SUNDAY
A Booming Crisis
Understanding the
global human trafficking
crisis and its connection
to the Oil Patch of
western North Dakota,
where an influx of men
and money in recent
years has brought an
increased demand for
commercial sex.

MONDAY
The Game
We take a deeper

“
psychological look at
pimp control, which is
the manipulation of
often already vulnerable
women. Pimps are
I’m totally free.
masters at making
unwanted, perhaps I’m on my own.
discarded women feel
wanted.
JENNY GAINES

TUESDAY
Difficulty
in Detection
How is human
trafficking detected?
Hospitals, hotels and
other groups are taking
various steps to detect
and report possible
human trafficking.

WEDNESDAY
Prosecuting
Prostitution
Conversation, rather
than arrest and
interrogation, is one of
the tactics officers are
using today to gain
information about
traffickers and put them
behind bars. It’s no easy
task. While going after
traffickers is a priority,
those cases are difficult
to prove.
THURSDAY
Making the
Connection
The Internet has
become the new
battleground for sex
trafficking. It’s where
women and traffickers
go to promote sex for
sale, but it’s also a
powerful tool for law
enforcement in arresting
them.
FRIDAY
PHOTO ABOVE BY BENJAMIN EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY
Jenny Gaines, now 45, has been out of the life of prostitution for three
years. She is seen at right at age 15, a year after she was recruited by her
first pimp.
since the ’90s, working hard to get out of “the life.” They
JENNY FROM A1
shared the despair, and now they share the hope. No one
else gets it; no one else understands like the women under
that old roof, couches and armchairs pushed too close
together to get around gracefully. The house is crowded
THE 109-YEAR-OLD HOUSE and you’re always in the way, but it’s OK, there’s no
Up in her office on the creaky second floor of the Breaking judgment here.
Free house, Jenny’s phone rings, her clients needing rides. Peterson looks for something to do: There are no children
This October afternoon, it’s go time. The annual today. She and other sisters of survival talk hair, kids,
candlelight vigil is just a couple hours away, and the house Halloween costumes and lunch. As the pasta cooks, the
and its front and back patios are filling with supporters. St. Paul house fills with more women, women who have
Breaking Free leaders and the St. Paul police chief rally hope and who want the same for their sisters on the streets.
the walkers before the march begins. Once Peterson had 30 kids in that 109-year-old house, she
At Point B, a United Methodist church four blocks and says in between hugging women as they come through the
many car honks away, people line up to read the names of common area.
women who died while in the Girls out there need places
life. Forty-three with like Breaking Free, she says,
premature, violent ends: killed places where they can build
by a pimp, killed by a trick, self-esteem.
killed by herself or killed “To know what to run from,”
accidentally by drug overdose. she says. “And know what to
The names are read to
remember, year after year. The
run to.”

Squaring Up names are read with an LIBERATED

Law enforcement and
victim service providers
in North Dakota are
identifying more victims
of sex trafficking, but the
closest dedicated
shelter for trafficking
victims is more than 500
miles away.
TODAY
What’s Next?
Human trafficking will be
a major topic of
discussion in the next
legislative session,
including a proposal to
adopt a new uniform law
on human trafficking.
JAN. 11
The Documentary
WDAY’s Kevin
Wallevand digs deeper
into sex trafficking in
North Dakota in a
30-minute
documentary-style
news program, airing at
10:35 p.m. Sunday.
ONLINE
Many additional stories,
photos, videos and
more can be found at
traffickedreport.com
unspoken sense of gratitude It’s mid-October, sunny, and
that the women in the room, so Jenny Gaines is on the move.
many of them fresh off the She blows in a machine to
streets or decades into their start her car. She’s OK with
recovery, aren’t on the list. that. In fact, she almost can’t
Jenny takes her turn and wait to get pulled over again so
remembers “Brenda,” stabbed she can flash her driver’s
52 times and stuffed in a trash license – a privilege she once
can. went without for 17 years.
The next day, the Breaking She is liberated now.
Free office is unusually quiet – On her way to pick up a
to the regulars anyway. To Breaking Free client in
others, it may seem bustling, southeast Minneapolis, Jenny
women young and old passing
lights a Newport and admits
through, checking in, stopping she’s gotta quit – she’s up to
for lunch. The furniture is old
two packs a day, but she gives a
and mismatched, probably lot of them away. With her
donated like everything else.
career at Breaking Free and
It’s quiet for this Wednesday, working weekends at a
says Geri Peterson, who cares
restaurant, she’s financially
for the children of the mothers independent for the first time
who walk in the door needing in her 45-year life, but she still
homes, jobs, love.
The receptionist, with a
isn’t where she wants to be.
“I was doing the math. What
radiant smile and a loud laugh
I make at Red Lobster pays for
you can soon recognize from
my cigarettes every month. So
the other room, answers and
that’s gotta go.”
transfers calls. One caller
She cruises down the
wants to register for “John
School,” Breaking Free’s interstate connecting the Twin
Cities and pulls on her
daylong program for convicted
solicitors of commercial sex. cigarette.
Others calling are clients, Three years out of
fragile girls needing their busy prostitution, she has an
advocates to call them back. apartment rented in her own
name for the first time – the
One of them walks in,
first time she didn’t break any
needing to fax a housing
application. Fifty-one single laws to pay the rent: no
units for sober living just prostitution, no sugar daddy in
opened up, but demand is high. the background.
Girls and women talk about “I’m totally free. I’m on my
how they’ve been coming here own.”

THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND

A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
ND TO CONSIDER TRAFFICKING LAW,
MORE FUNDING FOR ENFORCEMENT
By Amy Dalrymple
and Katherine Lymn
Forum News Service
P
lans to invest in law enforcement and
strengthen human trafficking laws appear
to have support as North Dakota’s
legislative session begins this week,
although proposals to expand victim services still
lack the promise of funding.
Other than adding a victim advocate to the
Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the only
proposal put forth so far for victim services
would allocate $500,000 to a pilot project in four
counties, three in the Oil Patch and one in Fargo.
But Gov. Jack Dalrymple says he is committed
to addressing human trafficking in western
North Dakota and last month outlined a budget
plan that calls for spending $90 million in new
money next biennium on law enforcement to
fight human trafficking and other crimes.
Dalrymple said hearing directly from BCI
agents about the frequency of trafficking in the
Oil Patch and around the state is shocking.
“They’re stories that I never would have
thought of being any part of western North
Dakota. I think the average citizen in North
Dakota, too, would be amazed,” he said. “But that
just means that we have to take it very seriously,
we have to address it and we’re moving the
resources out there right away.”
Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem says
supporting victim services is critical to
prosecuting human trafficking cases. He said he
asked the governor for a victim advocate to follow
up with potential victims the BCI identifies and
connect them with services.
“It takes a tremendous amount of work to gain
the trust, to make these victims understand they
aren’t going to be prosecuted, and make them so
they trust law enforcement,” he said.
Fighting human trafficking was a major reason
Stenehjem cited in asking the governor for a big
staffing increase – about 25 additional positions
for his office and the BCI. The proposed positions
include:
Seven new BCI agents primarily assigned to
Oil Patch communities, including two in Watford
City where currently none are based.
Two new agents with the BCI’s division that
investigates Internet crimes involving children,
who would spend a lot of their time on human
trafficking cases.
An additional criminal attorney to help
county prosecutors with major cases.
An additional criminal intelligence analyst.
The new positions will not be designated to
handle only human trafficking. But many, such as
the intelligence analyst, would be key for
investigating complex cases.
“There’s lots of information, but it doesn’t do
you a whole lot of good to have a whole bunch of
information coming in if you don’t have the
people who can analyze it and decide what to do
with it,” Stenehjem said. “That’s especially true
when we’ve got interstate operations going on.”
Some of the budget request calls for positions
to be funded before the next biennium begins so
agents could be hired this winter if legislators
approve the proposal, Dalrymple said.
“I was convinced that they need more
personnel, they need more boots on the ground,”
Dalrymple said.
A decision announced by the FBI late last year
to open a permanent office in Williston is another
major step forward, Dalrymple said.
“In order to be effective at all in dealing with it,
you have to be able to get to the source of the
problem. And that quite often is people who are
outside of North Dakota,” Dalrymple said.
Investigating human trafficking cases is a
priority issue for the FBI in the Bakken, along
with addressing an increase in cases of drug
distribution and crimes of violence, said Kyle
Loven, spokesman for the FBI region that
includes North Dakota.
Agents have been temporarily rotating to
northwest North Dakota, but have not had a
permanent presence. Local sheriffs and police
chiefs complained in a roundtable hosted by U.S.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., last year that the FBI
agents cycled through the Bakken too quickly to
adequately take on long-term investigations.
“I think we will most likely be in a more
effective position to deal with not only human
trafficking, but to deal with other crimes once we
get a permanent established presence in the
area,” Loven said.
Since Hoeven announced the new Williston FBI
office last November, no details have been
released about a specific location, when it will
open or how many agents will be based there.
Finding office space for additional staff in the
booming Oil Patch communities will be a
challenge for the FBI, as well as the BCI.
For state and local law enforcement, additional
training for officers to recognize the signs of
human trafficking also is a priority addressed in
the budget proposal, Stenehjem said.
“
They’re stories that I never would have thought of being
any part of western North Dakota. I think the average
citizen in North Dakota, too, would be amazed. But that
just means that we have to take it very seriously, we have
to address it and we’re moving the resources out there right away.
JACK DALRYMPLE
NORTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR, RIGHT, ON SEX TRAFFICKING IN THE OIL PATCH
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
JOHN STEINER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
Funding for training will come out of
$20 million Dalrymple proposes in grants to law
enforcement agencies in oil-impacted counties,
an increase of nearly $3.5 million over this
biennium.
While many officers from around the state have
attended human trafficking training recently, a
trainer who led daylong sessions in Minot,
Williston, Watford City and Dickinson said more
in-depth education is needed.
“The next step is to bring really specialized
training,” said John Vanek, retired lieutenant
with a San Jose, Calif., human trafficking task
force, adding that the class he led was mainly to
raise awareness.
Nationally, law enforcement personnel lack
sufficient training on human trafficking, Vanek
said. In California, where Vanek said aggressive
efforts to promote training have been underway,
he estimates 10 to 15 percent of officers
“understand exactly what trafficking is and how
to investigate a specific aspect of it, particularly
documenting the level of coercion.”
The increase in state and local law enforcement
funding is focused on western North Dakota, but
some resources would be for the whole state.
“These crimes are statewide, they’re not
isolated to western North Dakota. But because of
the population influx and because of the nature
of the workforce out there, it is very, very
dramatic how it’s increased,” Dalrymple said.
The victim advocate will be key to building
rapport with victims, critical to convicting the
traffickers, as well as helping the victim connect
with services, Stenehjem said.
He acknowledges that more support for victims
is needed, including long-term relief.
“You don’t get into these things overnight,”
Stenehjem said, “but getting out of it has to be
one of the most difficult things that any woman
would ever have to face.”
The governor’s budget proposal also includes
more funding to support behavioral health
services, as well as $500,000 more for domestic
violence programs, investments that could also
support human trafficking victims.
NEW LAW
Stenehjem also plans to support a law that will
be introduced by the North Dakota Uniform Law
Commission that decriminalizes prostitution for
minors, often referred to as a Safe Harbor law.
The proposal, more comprehensive than North
Dakota’s current human trafficking laws,
addresses criminal penalties, provides more
protections for victims and promotes public
awareness.
Rep. Larry Klemin, R-Bismarck, a member of
the state’s uniform law commission, said a major
goal of the law is to make victims aware that they
should not be considered criminals.
In addition to immunity for minors, the law
would allow women charged with prostitution to
assert an “affirmative defense” if they are victims
Saturday, January 10, 2015 A5
“
It takes a
tremendous amount of
work to gain the trust, to
make these victims
understand they aren’t
going to be prosecuted,
and make them so they
trust law enforcement.
WAYNE STENEHJEM
NORTH DAKOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL
of trafficking. Victims also could seek to vacate
convictions of prostitution and some other non-
violent offenses that resulted from being
trafficked. The law also allows victims to take civil
action against traffickers.
“We want these victims to understand that they
are victims and they can get out of this and there
is help for them,” Klemin said.
Other key components of the law include:
Increasing penalties for some circumstances,
such as recruiting a victim from a domestic
violence shelter, runaway youth home or similar
facility.
Requiring traffickers to pay restitution to
victims for expenses such as attorney fees and
compensation for the income owed to the victim
for labor or sexual activity.
Rest stops and hospitals will be required to
display public awareness signs advertising the
National Human Trafficking Resource Center
hotline.
Business entities that knowingly engage in
human trafficking can be held liable.
The bill does not include any appropriations.
“That always makes passage of a bill more
difficult,” said South Central District Judge Gail
Hagerty, also a member of the uniform law
commission.
Rep. Gail Mooney, D-Cummings, who has been
active at recent anti-trafficking discussions, said
adopting the uniform law is a priority, but she
wonders how the efforts can be effective without
additional funding.
“If we can get the laws changed, that’s the first
most important thing. But myself, I think we
really need to put some of our money where our
mouth is,” Mooney said, adding that the state is
“bursting at the seams” with money and people.
But while oil revenues have driven the state’s
budget surplus to record numbers, the recent drop
in oil prices could make legislators nervous about
spending big money on new initiatives.
Sen. Ray Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, said
creating new full-time state positions always
creates debate among legislators, even when the
price of oil is strong.
While there is uncertainty about the state’s
budget forecast, Holmberg, chairman of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, said the general fund
is somewhat cushioned from the ups and downs of
oil prices. Legislators will have a better picture
when they receive the budget forecast in March,
and decisions about funding new programs will
likely come toward the end of the session.
“I haven’t run to the bomb shelter or anything
like that,” Holmberg said. “We just need to wait
and see.”
He added that he hopes dollars will be dedicated
to fighting human trafficking.
“It’s a serious problem. It’s a problem recognized
by our congressional delegation, it’s certainly
recognized by the attorney general and the
governor. And I think and hope that the
Legislature does fully address the problem,”
Holmberg said.

A6 Saturday, January 10, 2015
U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., left, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., talk in September from Heitkamp’s office in Washington, D.C., about
their joint efforts to combat human trafficking.
HEITKAMP, KLOBUCHAR TEAM UP
TO BATTLE HUMAN TRAFFICKING
By Amy Dalrymple
Forum News Service
Washington
A
s local police chiefs and sheriffs gathered
in Minot to discuss increased crime in
North Dakota’s Oil Patch, U.S. Sen. Heidi
Heitkamp interjected when one cited a
spike in prostitution.
That may be human trafficking, she said.
“Understand that maybe behind that, what
you’re seeing as prostitution is some of the worst
victimization that’s out there. There may be
somebody who is in fact being trafficked, forced
to do this against their will,” said Heitkamp, D-
N.D.
Raising awareness of human trafficking in her
state while also working to advance federal
legislation to combat modern-day slavery has
been a major focus for Heitkamp, a former North
Dakota attorney general.
Working closely with her is U.S. Sen. Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota, another Democrat who
also comes from a law enforcement background.
In a joint interview with Forum News Service in
Heitkamp’s Washington office, the senators
talked about their passion for an issue that knows
no state boundaries.
“This is an example of how Minnesota and
North Dakota can work together,” Klobuchar
said.
Both have teamed with Cindy McCain, wife of
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and a national leader
on anti-trafficking issues. The three visited
Mexico last year to learn how officials there are
addressing trafficking.
Klobuchar, a former top Hennepin County
prosecutor, said it became clear to her that
EDUCATION NEEDED TO ADDRESS ‘A MAN’S ISSUE’
By Amy Dalrymple and Katherine Lymn
Forum News Service
A
s a truck driver more than 20 years ago,
Larry Medhurst traveled at times with
other truckers who wanted to stop by a
brothel in Nevada if they were passing
through the area.
Medhurst said he never joined them, but he
didn’t speak up, either. He would act differently
now.
“Knowing what I know now, I would have taken
a stand and said, ‘Hey, guys, that’s not what we
need to be doing,’ ” Medhurst said.
While law enforcement ramps efforts to lock up
sex traffickers and service providers seek to
better help trafficking victims, many say more
education aimed at eliminating the demand for
commercial sex should also be a priority.
“It’s a man’s issue,” said Medhurst, a Williston
man who recently participated in training
seminars on human trafficking. “It has to stop
with the men. And it’s all of us men who have to
hold each other to task.”
Last year, Medhurst began dating Windie
Lazenko, founder of 4her North Dakota, an
organization that helps victims of trafficking and
sexual exploitation. The relationship led him to
get more educated about sex trafficking, and he
began seeing things differently.
Medhurst, general manager of operations for
Secure Energy Services in the Bakken, has
THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE BAKKEN AND BEYOND
changes needed to be made to human trafficking
laws while her office attempted to prosecute sex
rings.
Often the victims would recant their stories,
saying they were scared of their pimp.
“Pretty soon you realized this isn’t working
very well. We’re not really, as a country, going
after the people that are really doing these
crimes,” Klobuchar said.
Following efforts to raise awareness in the
state, Minnesota adopted a Safe Harbor law,
ensuring that minor victims of sex trafficking
are treated as such, not as criminals.
“The only way you’re going to be able to build a
case against their pimp, someone running a sex
trafficking ring, is if you have a victim who’s
really able to tell the whole story,” Klobuchar
said.
Now, one federal initiative Klobuchar and
Heitkamp are working to advance would push all
states to adopt Safe Harbor laws. That bill did not
pass last year, but it did elevate the importance of
the issue. Many states, including North Dakota,
are now moving to adopt Safe Harbor laws on
their own.
They also support federal legislation aimed at
increasing penalties for traffickers, providing
more services to domestic sex trafficking victims
and providing funding for runaway and homeless
youth programs.
More work needs to be done in both states, they
say, although Heitkamp said North Dakota is
further behind.
“We’ve got a long way to go compared to
Minnesota,” Heitkamp said. “Now it’s our turn
to pick up the ball, to be as aggressive as
invited Lazenko to provide training sessions for
his employees, and he displays awareness posters
at work locations.
Another oil company operating in the Bakken,
Enerplus Resources, also is working to promote
education and awareness about human
trafficking for employees and contractors in
North Dakota, said Jessie Koerner, public affairs
coordinator.
But Koerner said she wishes more oil industry
professionals were working to raise awareness of
trafficking in North Dakota.
When asked if oil companies should be engaged
in a discussion about human trafficking to
address the demand, Gov. Jack Dalrymple,
chairman of the state commission that regulates
the oil industry, said it’s “probably a good idea.”
“Generally speaking, it’s an employer-employee
situation. We can suggest that employees be
counseled, educated and advised on the
seriousness of it. That probably would be the first
step,” Dalrymple said.
Tessa Sandstrom, spokeswoman for North
Dakota Petroleum Council, said while the
industry group hasn’t specifically addressed
trafficking, individual companies focus heavily
on safety and responsibility and their employees
are active members of their communities.
“They work very hard to promote social
responsibility within their companies,” she said.
Medhurst said he plans to continue educational
A FORUM NEWS SERVICE
INVESTIGATIVE SERIES
RYAN BABB / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
Minnesota and learn from them as well.”
Heitkamp and Klobuchar share concerns about
the threat of sex trafficking facing Native
American populations in their states.
“It makes sense when you have people who are
very poor who are in a concentrated area, that
you’re going to see more of this trafficking,”
Klobuchar said. “It’s really one of the saddest
things to see these proud, Native American
families have to deal with the fact that their child
is a victim of sex trafficking.”
In addition to sex trafficking, Heitkamp also
reminds people that the potential for labor
trafficking, particularly in the Bakken where
workers are in high-demand, needs attention,
too.
In North Dakota, Heitkamp would like to see
more funding invested for training of law
enforcement, victim service providers and
others. She’d also like to see resources dedicated
to a shelter and helping victims.
“The best a lot of our domestic violence
shelters can do in the Oil Patch is a bus ticket.
That’s not an answer,” Heitkamp said. “Housing
prices are so high, it’s just really hard to help
people transition into a safe place. We really need
to listen to what the victim advocates are saying
they need in western North Dakota, not just on
trafficking, but all crimes against women.”
After touring programs such as Breaking Free
and 180 Degrees in Minnesota, Heitkamp said it
gives her hope knowing that helping sexually
exploited women and girls leave the life is
possible with the right long-term programs.
“I’m so encouraged that you can, in fact, with a
lot of hard work, help people through recovery,”
Heitkamp said.
CARRIE SNYDER / FORUM NEWS SERVICE
Windie Lazenko, the founder of 4her North
Dakota, and her boyfriend, Larry Medhurst, listen
to a panel discussion during the 2014 statewide
summit on human trafficking in Bismarck.
efforts with his employees, which have been well-
received, and he plans to reach out to others in
the industry.
“I can influence 100 individuals on the team
that I’ve got here in North Dakota,” Medhurst
said. “If I can get each of them to influence one
more person or just educate their sons, we can
end this.”