South Bay child sex trafficking ringleader sentenced to decades in federal prison
SAN JOSE -- A San Jose man will be spending decades in federal prison for his role as the mastermind of a major child sex trafficking ring that provided underage female prostitutes to men in rooms at several South Bay hotels and motels.
Federal prosecutors identified Ariel Guizar-Cuellar as the leader of the ring. He pleaded guilty in Oct. 2021 to several human trafficking charges and was sentenced Thursday to 460 months in prison.
One of Guizar-Cuellar's co-defendants, Araceli Mendoza, was convicted by a jury for her role in the conspiracy and for the sex trafficking of one minor victim. She was sentenced Thursday to a 120-month prison term.
Two other co-defendants -- Jocelyn Contreras, 29, of Redwood City, and Alyssa Anthony, 30, of Gilroy -- were set to be sentenced in November.
On April 7, 2016, a federal grand jury indicted all four coconspirators charging them with one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of children and three counts of sex trafficking of children. Guizar-Cuellar also was charged with one count of sexual exploitation of children. Guizar-Cuellar, Contreras, and Anthony all previously pleaded guilty.
According to the defendants' guilty pleas and the evidence submitted at Mendoza's trial, Guizar-Cuellar was the leader, primary facilitator, enforcer and main financial beneficiary of the operation.
He used social media networks to identify victims, took pictures of women and girls, and then posted the pictures online on "backpage.com" to advertise sexual services.
Guizar-Cuellar acknowledged in his plea agreement that over a 16-month period he and the other defendants operated a commercial sex venture and recruited, enticed, harbored and transported several minor females to work as prostitutes and exotic dancers.
As the leader of the ring, Guizar-Cuellar rented rooms at various hotels and motels in San Jose, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale for prostitution activities and told minor females not to tell anyone that they were minors.
The youngest of the victims recruited into the prostitution enterprise were 15 years old at the time. Court records in the case demonstrate that the defendants received thousands of dollars from the prostitution of their victims and then flaunted the profits in part to recruit more victims.
The documents in the case provide a harrowing description of the treatment of the minor victims. According to trial evidence and testimony, Guizar-Cuellar subjected both the child victims and his female co-defendants to physical and sexual abuse.
In addition, the victims were shuttled daily throughout the Bay Area and sexually exploited. They were isolated from their families and support systems; deprived of food and sleep; and given cocaine, alcohol and other substances to keep them compliant.
They were also deliberately supplied methamphetamine to keep them awake so they could meet nightly profit quotas.
The defendants posted online prostitution advertisements repeatedly over many months using pictures of the children posed naked and in provocative lingerie. After one victim escaped and returned home, Guizar-Cuellar sought to shame her by distributing videos of the victim engaged in sexual intercourse with a customer on social media sites.
Guizar-Cuellar, Mendoza, and Anthony were all heard on the video clips mocking the girl and laughing at her.
In July 2017, Guizar-Cuellar pleaded guilty in Los Angeles to a variety of pimping and sex trafficking offenses in Orange County that landed him a 31-year sentence he currently is serving in the California penal system.
In that case, Cuellar-Guizar admitted to pimping underage teen girls and women, and raping a 15-year-old in addition to providing her with methamphetamine.
The charges he pleaded guilty to include pimping, pandering, human trafficking of a minor, forcible rape, sodomy of a minor, pimping a minor, furnishing a controlled substance to a minor and possessing a firearm by a felon.
Cuellar-Guizar has prior convictions for possession of a firearm by a felon and obstructing or resisting a police officer in Santa Clara County in 2009.