Mexican woman guilty of sex trafficking

NEW YORK, July 22 (UPI) -- A Mexican woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping run a New York sex trafficking operation with her two sons for 13 years, federal prosecutors said.

Consuelo Carreto Valencia pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in New York to one count of sex trafficking. She faces a maximum penalty of life in prison, though guidelines call for a range of 135-168 months, Justice Department officials said.

From 1991 through 2004, prosecutors said, Carreto Valencia helped manager her family's sex trafficking operation based in San Miguel de Tenancingo, Mexico. Carreto Valencia, and her sons Josue Flores Carreto and Gerardo Flores Carreto, and other co-conspirators, recruited poor and uneducated young Mexican women and girls, the department said. They were accused of using or approving a combination of deception, fraud, rape, forced abortion, threats, and physical violence to compel the women to prostitute themselves in brothels in the New York City metropolitan area, Justice officials said.

Her sons and co-defendant Daniel Perez Alonso pleaded guilty in 2005 and are serving lengthy prison terms. Carreto Valencia was extradited to the United States from Mexico in January 2007.