Two sex trafficking rings have been busted in New Jersey and seven people have been charged

Two suspected sex trafficking rings — including one whose victims were as young as 13 — were busted in New Jersey, leading to indictments against seven people, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Khailah Meekins, 21, and her accomplice Donte Barkley, 28, both of Newark, were charged with allegedly trafficking two 15-year-old girls and a 13-year-old girl in Essex County.

According to Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin, ringleader Meekins is accused of beating her victims with an electrical cord and using other violence to subdue them while “subjecting them to sexual assault by strangers.”

Using smartphone apps, Barclay arranged for these strangers to meet the girls after advertising nude photos to them online. The girls were then taken to short-term rentals and hotel rooms where men paid Meekins to assault them, Platkin said.

Meekins and Barkley are both charged with first-degree human trafficking, while Meekins is also charged with second-degree aggravated assault.

A third suspect, Richard Johnson, 24, had already been charged with third-degree aggravated assault in August for allegedly paying for sex with one of the minors.

The operators of a second prostitution ring in Cumberland County in southern New Jersey allegedly lured several women “weekly” from Paterson, New Jersey, and Queens, New York, under the guise that they would work as “dancers.” Instead, they were taken to a brothel in Bridgeton, not allowed to leave the brothel and, according to Platkin, “forced to have commercial sex with hundreds of men every week.”

Usiel Luna (42) and alleged co-conspirators Jose Perez-Lopez (40) were charged in this ring; Rosendo Vazquez-Hernandez, 35; and Yerson Puentes-Marquez, 28, all of Bridgeton. A search of the brothel and Luna’s home also turned up $50,000 cash, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, Platkin’s office said.

“These alleged crimes are a stark reminder of why we must remain steadfast in our goal to end human trafficking in all its forms,” Platkin said, according to the Bergen Record. “We are committed, and as long as I am the attorney general of this state, to bringing charges against anyone who engages in human trafficking.”

With News Wire Services