The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Chad E. Meacham, said two people involved in sex trafficking had been handed a combined 25 years in federal prison.
Alfonso Orozco Juarez, 37, and Robert Hubert, 68, were first charged in the trafficking case in October 2020, according to Meacham. Hubert pleaded guilty to kidnapping in February and was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison in May. While Juarez, who admitted to sex trafficking in March, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in August.
Juarez admitted in plea papers that he created a social media post on September 11, 2019, advertising a sex “slave” he claimed he had won in a card game. Hubert said he responded to the ad and offered to buy the victim for $500. Messages between both men showed Juarez referring to the victim as his property and that he “pistol whip[ped] her.”
Hubert and Juarez later met at a Dallas gas station, where they carried out their illegal transaction. While driving home, Hubert wrapped a metal collar around the victim’s neck, prompting the terrified victim to text Juarez asking for his help.
“I’m afraid if I don’t do something, he’s going to hurt me,” the victim wrote in the text message. The victim’s plea fell on Juarez’s deaf ears as he asked her to “endure what you have to. He’ll punish you, whip you, . . . but not kill you.”
Once home, Hubert cuffed the victim and forced her to sleep naked at the foot of his bed. The victim later persuaded Hubert to let her call her parents.
Hubert demanded the victim’s parents pay him $5,000 for their daughter’s safe return. The victim eventually escaped the home. However, authorities did not say whether the ransom was paid even though the parents agreed to Hubert’s demands.
“Treated like chattel, the victim, in this case, endured horrors beyond imagining,” Meacham said. “The North Texas Trafficking Task Force was launched to investigate and prosecute cases just like this one. We hope the sentences announced today will bring some peace to the victim as she recovers from her ordeal.”
Special Agent in Charge Lester Hayes Jr., Homeland Investigations Dallas, described the victim’s ordeal at the hands of Hubert and Juarez as “heartbreaking.”
“These perpetrators treated their victim as if she were personal property and not human,” Hayes said. “Fortunately, the defendants’ 25-year combined prison sentences will not allow them to target anyone else.”
Hayes promised that his task force would work relentlessly to eliminate all commercial sex-trafficking schemes such as Juarez’s and Hubert’s.
The Homeland Security Investigations and the North Texas Trafficking Task Force conducted the investigation into this case. The Crime Strategies Unit with the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque, NM, assisted with the investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew Briggs and Rebekah Ricketts (fmr.) of the Northern District of Texas are prosecuting the case, with significant assistance from Assistant U.S. Attorney Letitia Simms of the District of New Mexico.