Two men jailed for 30 years for trafficking gay sex-slaves
A Miami court sentenced two Hungarian men to 30 years in prison for forcing young gay men into sexual slavery.
The two men, Gabor Acs and Viktor Berki, were given their sentence on Friday after being convicted of human trafficking, conspiracy and racketeering in February.
They kept up to eight Hungarian men in their 20s as sex-slaves since 2012, first in New York City then in Miami.
Three of the victims testified they were raped by their captors, forced to have sex with clients and each other as well as perform for live web cameras.
A third man involved in the ring, Andras Janos Vass, was sentenced to just over 11 years for human trafficking in 2015.
Prosecutors said the ringleaders met two of the victims in Hungary through a website called GayRomeo.com, while the third victim had been working a male prostitute in Hungary and met Acs through Facebook.
The men were flown to New York City believing they would be participating in a legal business, but instead, they were forced to sleep in cramped apartments and perform sex acts around the clock.
The court heard that the men were barely fed and were threatened with violence if they did not comply with their orders.
“These victims were no match for these defendants. They were 20-year-olds who didn’t have enough education, who were desperate for money, who came over here without speaking the language, barely any U.S. money to their name” prosecutor Brenda Mezick said during the case.
But the defence had argued that the three men had simply turned on the accused and simply had wanted to remain in the US.
“What they said about the coercion never happened,” Berki’s attorney, Ronald Manto told jurors.
“They were doing what they wanted to do and they were doing it the way they wanted to.”
These are the first sentences in Florida for people convicted for the human trafficking of gay men.
In 2013 Florida Governor Rick Scott signed legislation allowing the removal of criminal convictions from the records of victims of human trafficking.
Acs and Berki’s defence attorneys argued in court that the victims were opportunists who manipulated the US authorities to remain in the country.
