Sex-trafficking case jury told customers were in thousands

It might not seem that the rough and tumble brothel on Houston’s East End would draw customers by the thousands, but during a 19-month period, sex rooms upstairs above the bar were rented out 64,296 times, according to federal authorities.

That is far more people than it would take to fill Minute Maid Stadium’s nearly 41,000 seats.

Prosecutors pointed to the staggering total — garnered from ledger sheets provided by a confidential informant — during closing arguments Thursday in the trial of Houston’s Hortencia Medeles. The 68-year-old faces up to life in prison if convicted on charges including conspiring to commit sex trafficking, harboring of people illegally in the United States and money laundering. Jurors in U.S. District Judge David Hittner’s courtroom resume deliberations on Friday.

The customer total was for a period that ended in August 2013 and represents just a slice of the yearslong conspiracy, according to prosecutors.

The mother of four, who is known as “Tencha,” is accused of running the Las Palmas brothel, on Telephone Road, in conjunction with a network of pimps.

Twelve women who worked there, as well as some of Medeles own children, testified against her.

They described how customers paid cover charges at the door as well as fees for rooms, condoms and the women and girls who prosecutors contend had been illegally sneaked into this country and held at the brothel against their will.

“These girls came to the U.S. looking for their American dream, but instead they found their American nightmare,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruben Perez told jurors. “It took guts for those girls to come here before you and tell you what happened to them.”

But defense attorney Ali Fazel has said repeatedly that while there is no denying the bar was a brothel and that a lot of business was going on there, his client had no hand in any conspiracy, and that she did not engage in sex trafficking, harboring immigrants or money laundering.

“I ask you to do what I think is the legally correct thing to do and find her not guilty of every single count,” he told jurors.

Fazel said federal authorities were desperate to justify their sex trafficking task force, and as a result were eschewing what should be a prostitution case handled in state court.

“This is a case about whether my client engaged in a conspiracy involving those girls and the answer is no,” Fazel said.

Federal authorities pointed to records that showed the bar often had more than 300 customers a night. Medeles allegedly cut a deal, where she was paid the first $20,000 of each week’s earnings and that pimps kept the rest.

Fazel sought to show that the women who took the witness stand stood to gain benefits, such as immigration permits, if they testified for prosecutors.

He said that the pimps who battered the women should be prosecuted, not Medeles.