♪♪♪
♪♪♪
undercover officer: Big
events bring a lot of tourism
and it can generate a larger
demand for commercial sex in our
city, in our county.
Charisma De Los Reyes: The
demand, the people buying sex,
is what drives this
criminal enterprise.
If no one cared about buying
sex, there would be no need for
a facilitator of sex, there
would be no need of a victim.
And so we really need
to focus on the demand.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
male: You know, the sex
buyers are blatant, they're
bold, in what it is that they're
asking for and what they're
wanting to do.
undercover officer: I think
he's close to trying to meet up.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
Monica Dean: So we're headed
to the Clairemont area and from
what the Human Trafficking Task
Force undercover officers tell
us, the suspect doesn't know the
exact meet-up location just yet
which is pretty
typical in their response.
So in their communication
over text messaging, they're
communicating with the suspect
saying, "Meet us in the general
area of Clairemont," and then
they're gonna dial
in a specific location.
So stand by.
undercover officer: Now,
we're waiting for him to go out
and--is gonna go up there
and hang out in the bathroom
and just be
able to communicate with you.
Monica: Okay, so at this
point we are at the park which
is the designated meeting
location and there are officers
with the Human Trafficking
Task Force stationed in various
locations around the park to
make this potential arrest,
including someone to meet up
with the suspect who is inside
the restroom here at
this park in Clairemont.
And it's kind of a nervous
feeling, wondering when this
person is going to pull up
and what's gonna happen.
undercover officer: All
right, RS1 just confirmed he is
on the way.
Monica: For more than a year
we've been investigating the
complicated issue of the sex
trafficking of children
in San Diego.
We've reviewed hundreds of
records, talked with survivors.
female: My exploitation
started at 12.
male: Seventeen.
Yeah, she was 17 years old.
I'm not gonna quit.
I'm not giving up
on my daughter.
Monica: We've
heard from traffickers.
male: I heard that you make a
email and then you go, you know,
Craigslist, The Backpage,
and you take some
cute little pictures.
Monica: We're taking you into
a dark underworld that operates
in broad daylight.
male: Here was a 74-year-old
man who was having sex with
minors, who had success
in the corporate America.
He got a "get out
of jail free" card.
Monica: There is no such
thing as child prostitution.
What you are
buying is child rape.
female: It is-- but
there is hope.
Monica: I'm showing you
how we all can be part
of the solution.
This is "Stolen."
undercover officer: Just
wonder, any point during this,
can you put in a
call and see what's up?
Monica: So about an hour
later, and the sex buyer was a
no-show here in Clairemont.
So we're pulling the
plug on this operation.
Monica: How busy
is this task force?
male: We are
swamped every day.
We could do these operations on
a daily basis and we would get
cases and arrests on a
daily basis from this.
Carolyn Matzger:
They work together well.
Monica: Carolyn Matzger is
the prosecutor assigned to the
Human Trafficking Task Force.
Her job is to make sure officers
follow the law and have the
evidence they need to
file charges in court.
Monica: San Diego County
created the task force in 2015.
It's a network of officers from
law enforcement agencies across
the county.
Carolyn: Their single focus
is on helping victim survivors
of human trafficking.
male: An act to combat
trafficking of persons,
especially into the sex trade.
Summer Stephan: We didn't
even have human trafficking laws
'til the year 2000 and
those were federal laws.
And then we didn't have our
state--California became the
first state to pass
human trafficking laws.
That wasn't 'til the year 2006.
Monica: The victim-centered
approach by law enforcement
is still relatively new.
Prior to 2017, minors who
were sold for sex were seen
as criminals.
That changed with a new
state law that recognized minors
cannot consent to
selling themselves for sex.
Monica: Law enforcement is
also recognizing that girls
aren't the only
victims of sex trafficking.
This was the first time the
task force targeted sex buyers
shopping for underage boys.
Summer: It's hard enough
to detect victims of human
trafficking that are girls but
boys and men, it's a even higher
level of shame and silence.
male: Boys are being
preyed upon and, yeah,
no one's looking.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪
Kyler Daugherty: Well, this
all started when I was about 16
and 17 is when it went haywire.
Monica: This is Kyler
Daugherty's first time speaking
on camera about the abuse and
exploitation
that nearly killed him.
Kyler: He was my boss.
Like, he was my friend.
Eventually, I was drugged and
eventually I was raped
and he filmed it.
If I did anything he was gonna
send this DVD to all my family,
and eventually I became a shell
of a person and I dropped out of
school, I dropped--I lost
everything and during that time
I was sold to hundreds, if
not thousands of men
and across many, many states.
And I wasn't the only one.
I know of at least--there was at
least 30 in my ring of boys
that were being sold.
Kyler: I would say, honestly,
95% of everyone who hired me
were straight,
married, with children.
It was always weird to me.
It was, like, these are the
men who have the most to lose.
They were lawyers, they were
doctors, and a lot of people
say, like, "Why didn't you run?
Why didn't you speak out?"
And a lot of it was fear, as
everything I did, there was
like a gun to my mom's head.
When I was working with
undercover detectives, I was
going out into our gay community
and speaking and interviewing so
many gay men and one of the
questions I was asking them was,
"When you were a teenager, were
you ever preyed upon or were you
ever propositioned for money?"
And every single
one said, "Yes."
I speak at middle schools, high
schools, all across San Diego
and I speak nationally.
Monica: But you
do it for a reason.
Kyler: Yeah, I do it
because it's saving lives.
It took me about eight years to
even accept what happened to me
and then it took another two
years of going to psychiatric
help to, like, really identify
what really happened to me and
saying I was a victim
of sex trafficking.
Monica: Still, it's tough
for survivors to recognize and
confront their exploitation.
And without their testimony
in court, it makes it hard
for prosecutors.
Summer: It's also one of the
only types of crime where the
victim doesn't call 911.
Carolyn: And they try to
protect their trafficker so once
law enforcement comes into
contact with a victim, often the
victim says, "I'm not a victim.
You know, this is my boyfriend
or, you know, we're just
boyfriend, girlfriend."
Monica: And since the
coronavirus sent kids home from
school and put them online more
than ever, the San Diego Human
Trafficking Task Force says they
saw an increase in the number of
trafficking cases
involving children.
From 2014 to 2019 police records
show 198 suspects were arrested
for trafficking and
pimping in San Diego county.
Of those, 183 were prosecuted.
Summer: Any age and any race
and that's very, very important
to emphasize because a lot
of people wanna do kind of a
stereotype of, like, a pimp
stereotype
and it's just not true.
Monica: A major trafficking
study found the race of
traffickers is pretty split with
the majority being whites and
blacks, but when it comes to
arrests, the data we obtained
shows in the last five years
83% of people arrested and
prosecuted for trafficking
and pimping were black.
We brought our findings to
the authors of that trafficking
study and they
weren't surprised.
They say these numbers reflect
an overall racial disparity when
it comes to the incarceration
of black Americans.
Monica: Do you know
what accounts for that?
Carolyn: I don't know but
what I do know is that what
you're saying is true.
The people who we are--who are
getting arrested are coming from
multiple different
ways to law enforcement.
So it's through, you know,
concerned parents, child welfare
services, other law enforcement,
businesses, and then, of course,
this online social media
work that's being done.
♪♪♪
Monica: So we're in the car
with one of the officers, one of
the undercover officers, with
the Human Trafficking Task Force
and we're headed to a location
where someone has agreed to buy
someone for sex.
We don't know all
of the details yet.
undercover officer: All I
know is that an individual has
agreed to do a sex act for money
and he will be expecting to show
up at a location here soon.
Monica: So we're here
in the hotel parking lot.
It is 10:20 on a Friday and we
are just waiting for the suspect
to make contact with the
undercover officer and then meet
up here in this parking lot.
Monica: So you're saying this
is the busiest month
you've ever had.
undercover officer: Let's say
in the past two weeks we have
recovered a 12-year-old,
13-year-old, 14-year-old,
15-year-old, and 17-year-old.
Monica: Do you
have enough officers?
undercover officer:
Absolutely not.
We're at about seven or eight
detectives now, when we could
easily double or triple that
number and have a full caseload.
undercover officer: All
right, just got an update.
Apparently, he's at an ATM
and he's four minutes away.
undercover officer: Let me
get a little closer and I'll
park and then we can have
the takedown team roll in.
undercover officer: All
right, we got eyes on him.
Let me--when he says he's here,
we'll have the takedown team go
and make contact.
[police siren]
undercover officer: He's in
cuffs. I'm gonna let them out.
And they're out.
Monica: Have you
ever done this before?
male: What, paying? No.
Monica: Okay, this is
the first time engaging
in a pay-for-sex situation?
Okay.
male: And it's not for sex.
Monica: A sex act,
I guess we could say.
male: Yes, yeah,
yeah, there you go, I guess.
Monica: Have you considered
the people who are out there
selling themselves for sex and
the fact that there's a good
chance that maybe they are
doing that
because they're
being trafficked?
male: I never
really thought of that.
Like, I never really
thought of it that way.
Monica: Do you have
any guilt about that?
Do you have any
thoughts about that?
male: Yeah, I guess, you
know, like, now that it's like a
slap in my face, you know.
So I don't know, it just--I
guess it's my unlucky day today
and I never really
agreed before doing this.
I'm always iffy about paying,
you know, and you're right.
Monica: So you
have paid before?
male: No, no, no, I never--I
have never paid before.
So I've never
really agreed, you know.
Monica: Do you think people
just don't understand
this is going on?
undercover officer: People
have no idea it's happening in
their backyards and
everywhere around 'em.
Monica: And in the end, this
would-be sex buyer walks away.
That's the law.
He'll get a citation and
have to appear in court for a
misdemeanor charge which
will likely result in a fine.
Summer: It is less than a
traffic ticket in many cases.
It's a $200 fine.
You don't really
spend any time in jail.
We're sending a message that
this is really no big deal.
Monica: And in one case we
uncovered, the sex buyer
was a wealthy CEO.
On the next episode
of "Stolen":
male: Here was a 74-year-old
man who was having sex with
minors who had success in the
corporate America.
He knew better.
Monica: The one who got away.
[phone ringing]
Ron: Ron speaking.
♪♪♪
