Searching for Pilar, page 28
Pilar stopped, choking, as if she was remembering the horrible, frustrating occurrences of that night. There was no sound in the courtroom.
“No one would help us, señor,” Pilar repeated, as if remembering that night and how disappointed she was when they pleaded with the neighbors for help without success.
“Objection!” Eduardo’s lawyer said. “Irrelevant.”
“The witness will confine herself to answering direct questions,” Judge Rhimes said.
“Did you see Eduardo Ayala again?” Robert asked.
“Eduardo’s brother, Guillermo, came and drove us to a dirty motel room where Josefina, Teresa, and I had to share one bed. That night Eduardo came to the motel. He made us wear much makeup and dance and have sex with many, many men in the back rooms of men’s clubs.”
“How long were you in the back rooms of the men’s clubs?”
“More than one year. There were no clocks or calendars, so we were never sure what time or day it was. The days and nights were all the same.”
“Where did you go from there?” Robert asked.
“One day, Guillermo drove us to Los Arboles and turned us over to Rosa and Esther. He told Rosa we were the girls from Mexico she’d ordered from Eduardo. They locked us up in very small rooms that smelled like sex and drugs and other bad things and sold our bodies to as many as thirty men in one night. Sometimes the men beat us. Rosa let them do it so long as they didn’t make marks on our face.”
“Objection!” Rosa’s lawyer said. “Hearsay.”
Pilar felt stunned, but she remained composed as James had trained her.
“Do you want to rephrase, Mr. Grossman?” the judge asked.
“How do you know Rosa knew about the beatings, Señora Chavez?” Robert asked.
“Esther was the boss of the girls upstairs. She watched the beatings and everything else and then told Rosa. She said it was one of Rosa’s rules. Men hit me all the time, but once I had a black eye. She told Tito he’d broken Rosa’s rule and he should throw the man out.”
“Did you get any money from the men, señora?”
“Eduardo and Rosa kept all the money the men paid to rape us. They said we owed them for our food and bed in return for them taking care of us. But they said they would kill us if we tried to escape. There were guards with guns everywhere and Esther watching us all the time. We couldn’t escape.”
“What were you expected to do at Los Arboles?” Robert asked.
“We were forced to have sex with the men every night, even when girls were sick or pregnant or had the sex disease. The men didn’t have to wear condoms. They beat or cut the girls who became pregnant to kill the babies.”
“Objection!” Rosa’s lawyer said. “The witness isn’t qualified to diagnose diseases or pregnancies.”
Pilar looked at Rosa’s lawyer. He glared back at her with a look of disgust, intended to intimidate her. She looked away.
“What makes you think the girls contracted venereal disease and were pregnant?” Robert asked.
“They would scream with pain and scratch themselves in their vagina area. I knew girls were pregnant because their bellies got very big and they would throw up a lot. I have a daughter, señor. I know what it’s like to carry a child. Besides, these women asked me to feel the baby kicking sometimes. They still had to work until the baby got cut out.”
Although Mary had heard Pilar tell about what she had experienced at Los Arboles, revelations like this still made her feel nauseated. She felt proud of Pilar being able to stay focused. She looked at Rosa. The woman’s face was still, her eyes unreadable. Rosa’s indifference caused a chill to run up Mary’s spine.
“Did the other two girls Eduardo trafficked to Houston go to Los Arboles?” Robert asked.
“No. Guillermo injected Teresa with drugs while we were at the clubs. Then they sold her to a man who was going to take her to his place near the Port of Houston to sell her there.”
“Do you know where Teresa is now, señora?”
“Once, I asked Eduardo where she is now, and he told me she is probably dead. He said she was half-dead when he sold her. She was a child—only fourteen or fifteen years old.”
“Objection,” Eduardo’s lawyer interjected. “This is irrelevant information.”
“Your Honor,” Robert said, “this information shows the pressure the Ayala brothers put on the witness to do what they demanded, including work at Los Arboles.”
“I’ll allow it,” Judge Rhimes said.
“How old were you when you went to Los Arboles, señora?”
“I was twenty-one, I think. I was one of the oldest girls. Eduardo said I looked younger. He told me to tell the men I was sixteen if they asked.”
“How old were the other girls you saw there?”
“Most of the girls were younger than me, some as young as twelve. I think almost all of them were from Mexico or Central America. Everyone spoke Spanish. Only a few of us spoke English, too.”
One of the jurors gasped when she heard how young some of the victims were. Spectators whispered among themselves. The judge told the juror not to show her emotions in court. Robert turned and looked directly at Rosa, who glared back at him.
“Did your situation ever change at Los Arboles, senora?”
“Yes.”
“How did it change?”
“One day Eduardo pulled me out of my room and said I was going to work for him in a new way. He gave me new clothes and told me I had to work for Rosa doing the kind of office work I’d done at the factory in San José.”
“Why did he do that?”
“He said he wanted me to learn about Rosa’s business so he could get some of it.”
“Objection!” Eduardo’s lawyer said.
“Overruled.”
“And did you learn about her business?”
“Yes. But I never told him anything he could use.”
“What were some of the things you learned while you shared an office with Rosa Rodriguez and kept her books?”
“Objection!” Rosa’s lawyer said. “The witness is not an accountant. She is not qualified to testify about financial matters.”
“Your Honor,” Robert said, “Señora Chavez had business training in Mexico and worked as the office manager and controller for a pottery factory in her hometown for two years. She is qualified to testify about the financial transactions she witnessed firsthand working for Rosa Rodriguez.”
“Overruled,” Judge Rhimes said.
“I learned that she owned other properties. She sold girls like us in many places on the east side of Houston, especially around the port. All the money came through Los Arboles. She made me count it and make the bank deposits and payments to vendors and pimps. She made a lot of money. Some of it she shared with a partner, who is dead now. Besides money from selling girls, she made money from selling liquor, some of which was not good. She also got money from the drug dealers who sold drugs in the cantinas.”
“Did you give the money directly to the partner?” Robert asked.
“No.”
“Did you give it to someone else?”
“Yes, a man named Chacho.”
“How much money?”
“I gave him twenty percent of all the money that came in once a week—about $25,000 in most months.”
“Chacho was the head of security for Arturo Escobar, the deceased head of the Sangre Negra cartel in the United States,” Robert triumphantly announced to the jury. “The details of these operations are contained in exhibits we have provided the court.”
“Objection!” Rosa’s lawyer yelled. “Escobar is not on trial here.”
“Sustained. The jury will ignore Mr. Grossman’s last statement about Arturo Escobar.”
Robert didn’t lose a beat. He asked Pilar, “What did Rosa Rodriguez tell you about her late husband’s death, señora?”
“Objection! Irrelevant!” Rosa’s lawyer shouted. Rosa shifted in her seat and looked scared for the first time.
“Judge, Rosa Rodriguez’s admission directly to Señora Chavez about her husband bears directly on the ruthless manner in which she conducted the business and her callous disregard for human life. Besides, it is an admission against interest and thus is admissable.”
“I’ll allow it,” Judge Rhimes said.
“Rosa told me she murdered her husband with poison. She said he’d been spending too much time upstairs with the girls. She knew many of them had the sex disease. She was afraid he would catch it from them and give it to her. She said that was why she’d had to kill him.”
With few exceptions, the jury and onlookers had been silent, rapt during Pilar’s testimony. But now there was an audible stir. Whispers of outrage could be heard from the onlookers, and the jurors glanced at one another and at Rosa, some showing unease.
“Order!” Judge Rhimes rapped his gavel, and the crowd quieted down.
Pilar looked at Rosa. She saw pure hatred in her eyes but no regret. Then Pilar looked at Diego, who was smiling.
• • •
Pilar’s testimony had taken the rest of the first day. When the trial convened the following morning, Rosa’s lawyer, a tall, broad-shouldered Hispanic man with a deep voice, stood and strode across the courtroom to cross-examine Pilar.
This was the part of the trial Pilar had dreaded the most.
“So, Miss Chavez, you admit that you were a prostitute for four years?”
“No, señor. I was not a prostitute, ever.”
“So you admit you were a prostitute in different men’s clubs before you chose to ply your trade at Los Arboles?”
“No, señor. Prostitutes sell their body willingly. I was forced to sell my body, without my consent, by Eduardo.” Pilar tried to remember all that Mary had told her in preparation for this line of questioning.
“So you admit you went to work at Mrs. Rodriguez’s cantina voluntarily?”
“No, señor. Eduardo and Guillermo forced me to go to Los Arboles, and Rosa and Esther and Tito wouldn’t let me leave. There were men with guns everywhere.”
“So are you blaming everyone else for your bad choices in life?” The defense lawyer leaned in menacingly at Pilar when he asked this question in a loud voice. This big man terrified Pilar, but she was resolved to not let him intimidate her out of testifying.
“Objection!” Robert said. “The defense lawyer is badgering the witness.”
“Sustained,” Judge Rhimes ruled. “Stick to the facts of the case, counselor.”
Rosa’s lawyer stepped back from Pilar. He looked Pilar over, as if appraising a sexy girl in a bar. Then he asked, “Isn’t it true, Señora Chavez, that you were attracted to Eduardo Ayala when you met him in San José, and you really went to Mexico City in hopes of leaving an unemployed, alcoholic husband in a dying town and having a liaison with a handsome stranger?”
“No, señor,” Pilar responded firmly. “I loved—I love my husband and never expected to see the man who came to the factory when I went to Mexico City. I answered an ad in a newspaper. I didn’t know he’d put it there to lure girls. I was trying to save my family from starving by making more money until my husband could find work. I would never have left my home, my husband and child, and my parents and brothers, except that I was desperate.”
“Hmmmph!” Rosa’s lawyer sneered, as if he were listening to a melodrama he had heard many times. He tried another angle.
“Isn’t it true that you schemed with Eduardo to become Rosa’s helper so that you could get out of the brothel and help him steal Rosa’s business?”
“No, señor. I was brought up never to hate anyone. But I hated Eduardo and I hated Rosa for what they did to us. They are both evil. I didn’t want to help either of them, but Eduardo said they would kill my family in Mexico, or Josefina, if I refused.”
“This Josefina—isn’t it true you and she had a romantic, sexual relationship?”
“No, señor. I love Josefina like a daughter or a sister but never in that way.”
“Objection,” Robert said. “Hearsay, and counsel has no proof.”
“Withdrawn.
“You went to the bank twice every week. If you were a prisoner as you claim, why didn’t you ask someone there for help?”
“Tito was always right beside me with his gun. I believed the bank teller he always used was working with him. I didn’t think she would help me, and if she told Tito I’d tried to escape, he would kill me.”
“Why did you never try to escape if conditions were as you describe at Los Arboles? You claim to be a smart woman.”
“I was locked up alone with a guard outside my door at night. I was always trying to think of a way for us to escape, but it was impossible. Just before we got rescued, I was ready to give up.”
Rosa’s lawyer boomed in a loud voice and leaned toward Pilar again. “Isn’t it true that you have exaggerated the conditions at Los Arboles in order to obtain a favorable plea deal and avoid prosecution for your part in the alleged conspiracy to commit money laundering?”
“I have only told the truth about what happened at Los Arboles, señor. I could tell you many more terrible things I saw. Everything I did with Rosa’s money, I was forced to do or die.”
This hostile questioning from each of Rosa and Eduardo’s defense lawyers went on for the rest of the day and all of the morning of the next day. By the time the judge ended the cross-examination, Pilar was exhausted, but she’d been determined and answered every question. When the judge finally told her she was excused, a wave of relief ran through her whole body. James and Mary were smiling at her as she walked toward them, and Diego hugged her and said, “I am so proud of you, little sister.”
• • •
Josefina was the first witness following lunch on the third day of trial. Josefina was still learning English, so her lawyer tried to keep his questions simple and had an interpreter nearby if needed.
“Señorita Flores, have you always lived in the United States?” Robert began his questioning.
“No, señor,” Josefina answered.
“How did you come to be here?”
“Eduardo, señor.”
“How did Eduardo bring you to this country?”
“I lived with my family in a small town outside Mexico City. I wanted to be a movie star when I grew up. I was a good girl, religious, and a virgin. I met Eduardo in the store where I bought movie magazines. He said he placed actresses with movie and TV producers. He took pictures of me in the store. Later, he said an agent wanted to interview me for a new telenovela, but I had to go with him to Mexico City. I was only thirteen years old and stupid. My parents were good people. I was foolish to go with Eduardo. He promised we would be home before dinner. At my interview, a woman who pretended to be an agent, but who worked for Eduardo, drugged me. I woke up a prisoner with Pilar and Teresa. Eduardo paid some terrible men to take us across the river in a big truck. But first, they raped us many times until I wanted to die.”
“Do your parents know what happened to you?” Robert asked.
“No, señor. I would be too ashamed. They surely think I am dead. If you send me back to Mexico, I don’t know how to do anything except sell my body. I will kill myself before I do that again.”
“Did Eduardo and Rosa force you to have sex with men without your consent at Los Arboles, señorita?”
“Yes, many men, every day—sometimes twenty or thirty men,” Josefina answered.
“Did you contract a sexually transmitted disease?”
“Rosa and Eduardo ruined me. I caught a sex disease at Los Arboles, and it hurt so bad I could barely walk. Pilar made Eduardo take me to a doctor in exchange for her working for Rosa in the office. I would have died without Pilar taking care of me as much as she could.”
“Have you been told by a medical practitioner that the disease had a lasting effect on your health, señorita?”
Josefina bit her lip. Then she looked at Rosa and added in a louder voice, “Because I had the venereal disease for a long time, a doctor at the refuge where I am staying told me I probably will never be able to have a baby. He said I could have died!”
“Objection!” Rosa’s lawyer yelled over the mumbling of the spectators.
Robert questioned Josefina for the rest of the afternoon about what she had seen and heard in the bordello. The fourth day of the trial was taken up with defense lawyers trying to impeach Josefina’s testimony. But Josefina remained strong and did not fold under pressure.
After that, Pilar and Rosa were finished with their testimony, but the trial continued for ten days. Esther, Tito, and the others charged had all pleaded guilty in return for a reduction in sentence and testified against Rosa. Eduardo had been holding out. But after Pilar and Josefina finished their testimonies, Eduardo’s attorney convinced him to make a deal with the United States Attorney to plead guilty in exchange for the United States Attorney’s recommendation that he be given a sentence of 180 months in prison, a $50,000 fine, and probation of five years after his release. Guillermo followed suit for a slightly shorter sentence.
The judge sent the case to the jury on the eleventh day of the trial. Six hours later, the jury returned a verdict against Rosa of guilty on all counts.
CHAPTER 29
REDEMPTION
Pilar was looking at the front-page headline in the Houston Chronicle:
NOTORIOUS MADAM SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON FOR HER ROLE IN OPERATING HOUSTON CANTINA/BORDELLO
Even with all she had gone through and suffered, Pilar tried not to be vengeful. But she couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Rosa locked up in prison with no chance of escape—as she had done to so many innocent young girls over the years.
“Maybe there is justice,” Pilar said to Diego.
