ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us today on national human trafficking awareness day let me start by thanking umos for hosting this press conference and lupe martinez thank you for making this possible i'd like to introduce police chief flynn who has some news of tremendous progress that he wishes to share with you thank you thanks mary jo obviously we're here today on national human trafficking day to bring awareness to this particular heinous crime and the effect it has on the lives of women and their families it's also an opportunity to talk about how the police working together with prosecutors in the community can make an impact on those who would prey upon vulnerable women and use them for their purposes human trafficking what is it well the legal definition is the use of force fraud or coercion to profit off of a person by means of forced labor or sexual exploitation now this is a crime that's frequently looked at as an international crime one that involves frequently the transportation of people from eastern europe or south america to countries far from home where they are exploited beaten starved and forced to work as sex workers but what we've learned in the united states in recent years is that the majority of our coerced sex workers are american-born people born right here in this country taken away from their people taken away from a safe environment and placed in a situation in which they are exploited assaulted and abused and forced to work for for work work uh sex for money now we don't normally think of a celebration in the context of such a serious topic but today i think we rightly can celebrate a victory in this pernicious trade for the first time in wisconsin state federal and local officials working together have successfully prosecuted someone for the crime of sex trafficking human trafficking here in wisconsin we have been able to convict an individual by the name of jermaine rogers it's the first prosecution of an offender under this statute in our state's history since 2006 rogers has used enticemen to prey on young women some of them juveniles some of them runaways giving them a place to stay and then turning his supposed kindness into cruelty they've been forced to engage in acts of prosecution once under his control he even forced them to walk behind him with their heads down now there's a human task the human trafficking task force here in wisconsin it's operated for the last few years it's stationed in here in eastern wisconsin and we work closely with our partners in the federal government the fbi immigrations and customs enforcement the united states attorney's office and critically with the da's office right here in the county of milwaukee and it was here that that prosecution occurred working collaboratively with our law enforcement partners we were able to take advantage in a good way of a courageous person who came forward to allege that she was being abused and held against her will she brought this information to the attention of the federal authorities the task force commenced an investigation and in the course of that investigation other victims were identified some of them juveniles and after much work and much cajoling they came forward to testify we used good old-fashioned police work including uniform patrol officers to make a traffic stop to serve a warrant on our suspect to properly identify him and as the case developed we were able to make a very strong case that indicated just how bad this man was and how much evil he was personally responsible for the district attorney's office picked this prosecution up assistant d.a sarah lewis who's with us prosecuted this case and thanks again to that ongoing collaboration across district lines cross jurisdiction lines across agencies of the criminal justice system an arrest was made a prosecution was undertaken and a conviction was achieved we're very proud of this work we're proud of everyone who's been involved in it we're certainly pleased that our people had a role to play and as we look forward we know that this is not going to be the last time that this task force is successful in apprehending arresting and prosecuting human traffickers so we thank you all for coming today and we look forward to the continued work of this task force thank you chieftain flynn courage and teamwork is very much of a part of today's story and with that let me introduce to you sarah lewis assistant us i'm sorry district attorney's office thank you very much uh yeah so good afternoon ladies and gentlemen my name is sarah lewis and i'm the state prosecutor who handled the case involving jermaine rogers and i think chief flynn really hit on all the high points regarding that investigation and prosecution and what an incredibly significant effort it was in particular with respect to how law enforcement worked together with the district attorney's office law enforcement including the city of milwaukee police department including the tireless work of detective linda stat as well as the fbi and the efforts of fbi agent amy coleman it was definitely a collaborative effort but in particular on today's date when we're thinking about the topic of human trafficking i think it's important that we all remember the victims and the many that are likely out there suffering as we hold this press conference it's important that all of us continue to work tirelessly to protect our community in particular the most vulnerable members of our community and i thank the milwaukee police department the fbi and the u.s attorney's office for helping us accomplish that goal each and every day thank you