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Eulogio Constantino-Sanchez
On Tuesday, police in Richmond arrested 35-year-old Eulogio Constantino-Sanchez on suspicion of kidnapping, rape, corporal injury, false imprisonment, and conspiracy. Authorities say Sanchez and a male relative used Facebook to lure a Nicaraguan woman to the U.S., where he then kept her as a sex slave inside his Richmond home, allegedly confining her in a closet at times.
As the
Chronicle reports, however, neighbors describe a far different situation.
They say the woman was free to leave Sanchez’s house and even worked at a nearby Sheraton hotel. Sanchez and the woman were often seen dining together at local restaurants. And the woman would go to the grocery store alone. Neighbors say Sanchez was just "helping out" the woman and that police have the facts wrong.
“I don’t believe she was kidnapped,” Sanchez’s niece told the
Chronicle, noting that Sanchez or a neighbor would take the woman to work at the Sheraton hotel.
As Carolyn Graham, intervention department community services manager for STAND, told the
Chronicle, victims of human trafficking don’t always know when they’re being abused.
“It’s about power and control,” Graham said. “It’s not always a chain-link fence. If you don’t have anyone in the country, you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you’re surrounded by, your captor is a lifeline. A lot of people don’t understand that.”
According to
Kron 4, Richmond police were tipped off the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They found enough evidence in Sanchez’s house to corroborate the woman’s story and take Sanchez into custody.
