COP IN SEX-RING ARREST
Brewster officer tied to Mex. underaged prostitution
A suburban police officer and five Queens residents were charged Tuesday with luring underage Mexican girls to New York and forcing them into prostitution, with the corrupt cop accused of accepting sex from the victims as payment for his work as a law enforcement mole.
The operation, dating back almost 20 years, involved a pair of Queens-based schemes: the Ced-Hernandez sex trafficking organization brought the young women to New York with false promises of a better life, authorities charged in a 14-count Brooklyn Federal Court indictment.
The Godinez prostitution operation then drove the victims to meet with clients including Wayne Peiffer, a Village of Brewster police officer in Putnam County who also provided the ring with “advance warning of law enforcement operations,” authorities said.
According to authorities, the young women were at times delivered to the 48-year-old cop for sex at the Brewster police station. The 15-year police veteran, in addition to his work as a lookout for the two organizations, was also cited in court documents for “intervening to prevent arrest.”
He was released to home detention with a monitoring device on a $300,000 bond posted by family members.
Court papers quoted Peiffer, arrested in Highland, N.Y., joking with a co-conspirator about the physical characteristics of the women, including their breast size.
“The defendants conspired to lure young women and minor girls to travel to the United States based on false promises of a better life and forced them into prostitution once they arrived,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.
“The defendants allegedly received assistance in carrying out
this conspiracy from a corrupt police officer who traded the honor of his badge and sworn oath for free sexual services.”
The other defendants, all of Queens, were identified as Luiz Elvira Cardona, 33; Roberto Cesar Cid Dominguez, 54; Christian Noe Godinez, 42; Blanca Hernandez Morales, 51; and Jose
Facundo Zarate, 32. Authorities said they were all related.
Godinez remained on the lam as his co-conspirators were brought in for their initial court appearances.
“I’m innocent, your honor,” Dominguez declared in Spanish at a virtual court appearance where he and Blanca Morales both pleaded not guilty. All four defendants were held without bail pending a court appearance next month, with Judge James Cho brushing aside Cardona’s claim that she was a church-going mother of three.
The evidence against Peiffer “is overwhelming ... [and] includes not only witness testimony but also communications between [him] and members of the organization,” court documents charged.
Authorities cited more than 400 text messages between the cop and Godinez, who allegedly drove the young women to meet with Peiffer for sex.
According to the 19-page indictment, the conspirators pressured two underage women to travel to New York, where the pair were forced into “commercial sex acts” by means of “force, fraud and coercion.”
They were then taken to meet with prostitution clients across New York State, authorities alleged.