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MSNBC Undercover: Sex Slaves in America
For almost a year, 20-year-old Katya, a university student from Ukraine was forced to work strip clubs in Detroit by two men she thought were taking her to a waitressing job in America.
Alex Maksimenko’s and Michail Aronov imprisoned her and 15 other women in separate apartments around Detroit.
Katya: We couldn't kept any money in our apartment because the guys has keys.
They have, I believe, there was listen us in the apartment. And we could not hide nothing. They're say, if they find at least a dollar, it will be something bad happen to us.
The 12 hour shifts yielded up to $1000 a night but the women saw none of it.
Katya: They have a beautiful house. They have a Mercedes, brand new. They have Cadillacs. They have the best clothes, Versace. They have everything. They spend all our money for their well-being.
Michael Rataj: There was no armed guard outside their door. Maksimenko didn't sit inside the bar the entire 12 hours with a gun in his pocket.
Michael Rataj, Maksimenko’s attorney argues the girls could have fled anytime.
You know if you make any false moves, I'm gonna kill ya. There was none of that. They could have called the police any time.
Bridgette Carr, Katya's attorney scoffs at that notion. She says the girls knew that Maksimenko had recently firebombed the car of a girl's sister who had tried to help her escape.
Bridgette: Alex and Michail told her, if you try to leave, we'll kill your family back in Ukraine. These are women who are already taken from everything they knew, Thought they were going to something completely different. Thought they were gonna be waitresses in, in Virginia Beach for the summer and then go back to university in Ukraine. So, if, if these men could do that to them, why couldn't they kill.
Katya says the constant fear and humiliation led to depression and worse.
Katya: You know, 12 hours a day, at the same place, over and over again, the same people, it was terrible. It was the, the nastiest place I ever been. I felt miserable every single day. When I was going to shower, I was hating myself, I was even thinking about suicide many times because I didn't have a choice to get out. And one day, it was just enough for me. I was thinking I'm gonna do this. I will see how it's gonna go.
For Katya, the only alternative to suicide was a risky escape that would be months in the planning. It turns out that her girlfriend--had found an American man, a customer who had promised to help them.
Katya: In February we decided it's enough and were going to have to get out. We have a guy who we can trust, who we build a trust to him and he said he will brought us to immigration and they will help us there.,
That friend called the local FBI Agent, Immigration Agent Angus Lowe took the call.
Angus Lowe: I got a call from a concerned citizen. He'd met some girls working at a strip club called Cheetahs. He said you should check this club, these girls are treated like slaves in there.
On February 14, 2005, in the dark hours of early dawn, the girls made a run for it. The Michigan native was waiting for them in his car.
Katya: In the morning, 6:00, after work, we put all our clothes in the garages. And we’re gonna get out outside like we was with the garbage. So, we're thinking, if they will come up, that we go with the garbage. And we put everything in the car, close our door and we run away.
Lowe: This is the apartment where the first two women escaped and had initially come to ICE were held. They were held in this apt by Maksimenko and Aronov. As the girls decided that they were going to try to escape they began trying to collect some money and what they would do is hide the money in a cookie tin which they buried under a bush. Agents recovered the cookie tin shortly after the arrests and there was about $700 in the cookie tin which is about all they were able to save up in preparation for their escape.
They were free, but not of the terror that had haunted them for so long.
Katya: When I run away, the same day, I couldn't sleep. I was so scare. I call my mom. I say, I don't know what's gonna be. Sorry. I'm still very scared. Sorry.
Grace Kahng: What did your mother say when you called her?
Katya: When I run away she said the she very grateful that I did it. And when I saw her first time for two years she was so excited to see me alive.
Lowe: When we went into house on a search warrant. Very quickly when we got in we found a shoe box full of cash in the living room just sitting next to a coach in the basement in the rafters we found a small bag with $52,000 in it and there was keys to a bunch of safe deposit boxes. We found 62,000 in one safe deposit box, about 121,000 and then the one I got to open by chance happened to be the one with the most money in it; is was $255,000 in it.
When all was said and done over $500,000 in cash had been confiscated along with guns and special recording devices.
Angus: It's helpful for the trafficker to know what's going on maybe use the recordings to put one girl against another. It puts more fear in the girls because somehow these men know things they weren't privy to.
The federal case against Maksimenko was a slam dunk and his lawyer knew it. Rather than take his chances in front of a jury, Maksimenko plead guilty to, and was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.
Michael Rataj: These girls were forced to work in strip clubs in Detroit, 6 days a week, 12 hour shifts, which is really a long time to be in high heels and all that, and they took all their money, hid their papers, isolated them from other people and basically tried to control as much of their lives as they could.
Attorney Rataj says despite his client’s treatment of the girls, in many ways he's a victim.
Michael Rataj: In a perverse way, he's a victim of his upbringing, his father, how things are in Ukraine. Certainly he's a victim. He didn't have a father who taught him how to throw a baseball. His father is a criminal, taught him how to be a criminal. So again, yeah, in a perverse way, Alex is a victim.
While Alex Maksimenko received 14 years and trafficker Michael Aronov received seven years for cooperating with federal agents. Katya says neither sentence is long enough.
Katya: I feel that when, (stammers) that she told, judge, that they will sit for that amount of time, I feel it wasn't enough for them. What they did to us, it was terrible.
Even today with both men behind bars, Katya lives in fear. Her mother still lives in Ukraine and the old rules still apply.
Katya: Alex’s father, he knows my mom. He knows where she lives. And he visited a couple of times after I ran away. He threatened her. He used very aggressive words. He said, if I will not stop talking, that will blood come out from me.
Katya is one of the few women with the courage to come forward. She testified in congress last month.
Katya: And every day I'm living, I'm scared that something can happen.
Bridgette Carr: People will often talk about, there's been a bust and a number of prostitutes have been found. Well, I wish our language could change because pro- saying that someone is a prostitute denotes a choice. These women, many women are actually prostituted.
Marcy Forman oversees 305 special agents tasked with cracking criminals who traffick women.
Often times people think that crime only happens in the big city. It doesn't, it happens throughout small communities, medium sized communities and large communities. We're seeing such, such horrific crimes involving sex trafficking it's all about the money. These organized criminals don't think of these people as human beings. They think of them as dollars and cents.
You'll see she's absolutely right. MSNBC goes undercover in search of sex slaves in America
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