JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The suspected sex trafficking of a 22-year-old woman who was a student at the University of Florida has prompted her parents to warn other parents about what’s lurking on college campuses across the United States.
“Wake up! This is happening on college campuses. It’s rampant. If you don’t think your daughter will not be a victim, you need to pay attention,” the 22-year-old’s father said.
The parents of the woman who is believed to be a sex trafficking victim told News4JAX they have not heard from their daughter in months.
All they know is that she is now appearing in sex videos on various adult websites. Both her parents and investigators believe this is a case of sex trafficking with a legal loophole.
It’s considered a legal loophole when the suspected victim is an adult and is telling authorities she is okay and is choosing to appear in sex videos of her own free will.
But investigators, in this case, believe the 22-year-old woman is being forced to say she is okay. Until she admits she is being threatened to appear as if everything is fine, authorities cannot arrest the man who is believed to be her handler.
Both her parents and investigators said there are obvious signs that she is being sex trafficked.
Because the man suspected of being her handler has not been charged with a crime, News4JAX cannot identify him by name or image. News4JAX is also not identifying the parents of the 22-year-old to protect her identity. She is believed to be a victim in this case.
The Northeast Florida mom and dad told News4JAX they last spoke with their daughter in December 2023. They said they received a disturbing phone call from her while she was in North Carolina.
“It was first a cry for help that alarmed us,” said the woman’s father.
Moments after hanging up the phone and preparing for the long drive to North Carolina, he and his wife said they received a second phone call from their daughter.
“It was a cry not to help which was confusing and it led to a long conversation that she was fearful for us and that she would never be able to see us again, said the woman’s father.
The brief phone conversation was heartbreaking for the parents because before their daughter met a man online who is now described as her handler, their daughter always came home every other week from college to be with her family.
Some of her clothes are still hanging in the closet in her bedroom at her parent’s home. There are also Christmas presents she never opened.
“She is being completely isolated from everyone in her life, not just her family but her friends. We’re seeing a pattern unlike anything we experienced before she went away to college,” the woman’s father said.
Mom and Dad received more heartbreaking news when they contacted their daughter’s friends and classmates at UF. They told the parents the man their daughter met on Instagram is also the same man who coerced her into posting adult content on the OnlyFans website.
OnlyFans is a subscription-based video-on-demand service and social media website that some argue is primarily used by amateur and professional sex workers who produce pornography.
The parents learned their daughter was not the only female student at UF who was asked to appear in sex videos by the same man.
“He has solicited other young ladies that were her friends and would not take no for an answer. We’re speaking up to $1000 or more to participate in some video,” said the woman’s mother.
The woman’s parents put News4JAX in contact with one of her friends who was also a UF classmate. She told News4JAX that the man who coerced her friend into appearing in sex videos was also attempting to coerce her and several other female classmates to do the same thing.
“He began to pressure my friends and me to be in their videos. The asking was very persistent and repetitive. I declined after being offered more than a thousand dollars for one video. I think my friend feels trapped and doesn’t think she can go back to living a normal life,” said the woman’s friend and classmate. She also said all the solicitations to appear in videos with the 22-year-old happened off campus.
News4JAX contacted the OnlyFans media relations department at their London, England headquarters via email to see if they have policies in place to make sure women who appear in explicit videos are not being sex trafficked.
While the statement they emailed back did not directly answer the question, it said in part:
All creators go through extensive identification checks before they are able to upload content to the platform. This means we know the identity of everyone on the platform. OnlyFans insists upon signed release forms/creator identity verification for all sexually explicit content featuring more than one individual before content is posted to the platform. We cooperate with law enforcement and provide them with all of the legally required information they need, including account details, content, messages, and payment details.
OnlyFans Media Relations
OnyFans was just the beginning. Google searches reveal the 22-year-old is also now appearing in explicit material on other websites. Images and posts on her social media pages reveal the woman is traveling with her suspected handler to various countries worldwide.
One of the people who was brought in to help investigate the case was Kevin Branzetti.
He spent nearly 30 years in law enforcement. First, as a member of the NYPD Counter-Terrorism Bureau and then with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as an investigator. He’s now the CEO and co-founder of the National Child Protection Taskforce.
It’s a company that identifies sex trafficking networks and assists law enforcement in freeing victims. The Taskforce partners with the Tim Tebow Foundation and was called upon to help investigators look into the case involving the 22-year-old.
While Branzetti could not specifically talk about his findings in the case, he was able to talk about the stages of coercion that victims fall prey to.
He said stage one is the introduction.
“The man will befriend the girl. Date the girl. Show her lots of love and affection, Branzetti said.
Stage two is getting the victim to feel like she is with someone who can make her feel safe. Branzetti said this is when the handler will tell stories to promote how tough he is.
“He might talk about things he’s done in his past. He may even talk about someone he killed in his past, maybe while in the military, the streets, or wherever,” Branzetti said.
Stage three is when the handler tells the victim they need to financially support each other, especially now that there is a trusted relationship. Branzetti said this is when the unsuspecting victim is coerced into doing a sex act online or with another man or woman and promised that she will earn a lot of money.
That leads to the next stage. Fear, but not the fear of the victim being beaten.
“But the fear of what he will do to her family. Her siblings. Her parents. I’ll kill your mother if you tell anyone. At this point, the woman believes it because she’s gone through all these stages with him. He’s someone she believes, trusted, and heard. She thinks he’s been violent in the past. She thinks he’s dangerous and he has her completely convinced that if she doesn’t do what he wants, mom, baby brother, and baby sister are dead,” Branzetti said.
The parents of the 22-year-old believe their daughter’s handler has told their daughter that he will harm them if she doesn’t do what he says. That belief came after their last phone conversation with their daughter in December.
The 22-year-old’s mom said if parents are about to send their daughter off to college, there is one thing those parents can do in addition to having a conversation with their college-bound daughter.
“When you send your kids off to school, get numbers and names. Try to know the other parents so you have a network of people there to call and try to save your child before it gets to this point,” said the mom of the 22-year-old suspected victim.
News4JAX reached out to UF to see if campus police and administrators knew what happened.
A University spokesperson said the university didn’t know about this because the solicitation happened off-campus and no reports were ever filed with Gainesville or campus police. The parents of the 22-year-old went directly to federal law enforcement.
The university spokesperson who used to work in law enforcement said this is not just happening on and near college campuses. She said it’s happening everywhere including high school campuses.
If you or anyone you know is a victim of sex trafficking, please know that help can be just a phone call away. You can call your local police department. You can also call the National Human Trafficking Hotline. The number is 888-373-7888. There is someone available 24-7 to answer the phone.