Co. prosecutor says diligence of Austintown PD, task force brought charges against alleged sex trafficker
Last week, 21 News reported that a Mahoning County grand jury had returned a sex trafficking indictment against a Youngstown man accused of forcing half a dozen women into prostitution.
The investigation led to the alleged sex trafficker getting caught with new charges, which Prosecutor Lynn Maro said is a difficult task.
After one person came forward regarding alleged crimes by 36-year-old Larry Burgess, Maro said, police began building blocks of evidence that led to this superseded secret indictment.
The "lengthy" investigation began in December of 2023 and has to the superceding indictment returning 26-counts against Larry Burgess.
The indictment alleges Burgess forced women into acts of prostitution and raped a woman twice, on top of drug-related charges such as trafficking in heroin, cocaine, fentanyl-related compounds and meth.
Maro said case like this requires enough evidence to prove three things: force, fraud and coercion.
"They're more difficult investigations because often the victims of human trafficking or the compelling prostitution counts, which are included in this most recent indictment," she said, "You're dealing with people who aren't proud of what they've done, who, even though they're victims on some of the charges, really don't want to come forward and talk about what they went through."
She said the investigation was designed to cultivate that evidence after someone spoke out.
"Do we have a simple prostitution ring? Do we have something more involved?" she said, "And it did show something more involved, both with the selling of drugs and with the compelling prostitution counts."
She said there were several elements that led to a strong case sufficient enough to bring this indictment.
"But it all originated with one person telling what happened, and from that, the whole investigation started," she said.
She credits Austintown police and the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force for following up on additional leads.
"Law enforcement did an excellent job of continuing, even after we had enough for initial charges, they continued the investigation. It doesn't just stop with the arrest and the initial charges. That really built the next level of prosecution that we saw in this superceding indictment with the more serious charges," she said, "We want the evidence that's going to support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt and that's what law enforcement did in this case, was to keep prodding, keep investigating, keep following leads."
Maro added that, unfortunately, her office has been seeing an increasing amount of violence against not just women but also children in Mahoning County.
