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| Busted: Police claim Gregory L. Foster attempted to force a 14-year-old girl into prostitution |
A sweeping prostitution sting in Orlando captured a sex trafficker intent on forcing a 14-year-old girl into the world of sex trafficking on its very first night.
Gregory Lionel Foster, 28, has been charged with kidnapping, human trafficking, and drug charges after he showed up at a motel with the teen in hopes of selling her services and found police rather than a paying customer. He is also charged with lewd and lascivious battery.
The three-day prostitution sting that captured him finished on Saturday with 44 arrests.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Foster originally met the unidentified girl on Facebook. She lived in his neighborhood.
He met her shortly before sundown at a gas station on April 9th, then offered her a ride home.
But police claim that instead of returning her to her family, he would try twice to force himself on the teen, who he called 'baby,' as well as try to force her to have sex with other people.
She tried to run away at least once before Foster took her to a motel near the gas station, where he had sex with her.
All of this occurred before he family even realized she was missing.
Foster was captured after taking the girl to a Clermont hotel for what he thought would be a paid encounter with someone he'd found with an online sex ad. He was asking $200 for the sex, $50 for gas.
The pair arrived to find Lake County Sheriff's detectives.
'I believe we saved her life,' said Det. Amber Warren. 'This was the first time she had been prostituted.'
Warren said adult cases needed an element of 'force, fraud or coercion' while juvenile human trafficking needed the same elements with the added issue that the teen 'definitely wasn't willing.'
The cases usually takes month to investigate and are underreported.
The sting, called operation 'Holler Back,' netted suspects from Lake, Orange, Polk, and Marion counties.
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| Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders said that while he has no evidence human trafficking is a major problem in his county he plans to stay proactive about the issue |
Some brought alcohol, two brought guns, and many thought they'd be paid as much as $1,000 in exchange for sex.
'It's unacceptable,' he said. 'Those people need to be in jail and we're glad to put them in jail.'
However Tomas Lares, chair of the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Task Force, called the case 'average.'
According to Lares, traffickers typically groom their victims by befriending them, complimenting their appearance, and fostering 'dysfunctional' relationships with them. The target is typically someone seen as vulnerable, with low self-esteem who can be easily manipulated.
Florida's volume of calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline ranks third nationally with 1,200 reports in 2013.
Last year, the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation saw their tips double from the 2012 amount to 126 calls.
After her ordeal, the teen told detectives how she asked Foster to go home only to have him refuse, how he tried to force her to be with a strange man at an undisclosed residence before she ran out, and how he told her not to 'mess up this time' on the way to the Clermont hotel encounter.
He then had her unknowingly speak with an undercover detective twice on the phone to arrange for sex.
