Three months in prison for woman accused of sexually exploiting a teenager she took to Haiti

Santiago.- The judge of the Judicial Office of Permanent Attention Services of the Judicial District of Santiago, imposed this Friday three months of preventive detention as a coercive measure, on a woman accused of human trafficking, trafficking and sexual and psychological abuse to the detriment of a Dominican teenager whom she transferred to the neighboring country of Haiti to sexually exploit her. The accused is María Estela Fajardo Liriano (la Patrona), a repeat offender charged with the same crimes in the judicial district of Valverde, who allegedly headed a trafficking ring that was organized to recruit its Dominican adolescent victims in different areas of the country. The teenagers were taken to the Cabaret Bar La Patrona, a business owned by the defendant, located in Pétion-Ville, Haiti.

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The coercive measure was imposed due to the material, expert, testimonial, and documentary evidence collected by the prosecuting body through its Department of Trafficking in Persons, which was appointed to the case in which the victim, then a minor, was taken to Haiti, where she was held and subjected to abuse, sexual assault, and other forms of abuse. The investigation in which prosecutor Juan Osvaldo García was employed, states that the victim was contacted and transferred from Santiago to a villa in Santo Domingo by several young women acting on behalf of the accused. The Public Ministry has evidence that the victim's captors demanded the payment of cash from her relatives in exchange for returning her to the country. The Santiago Prosecutor's Office charged Fajardo with the provisional charges of violation of articles 265 and 266 of the Dominican Penal Code; article 1, letters A and C, and article 3, of Law 137-03, on Illicit Trafficking of Migrants and Trafficking in Persons. In addition, he is charged with violations of Article 396, paragraphs A, B, and C, of Law 136-03, on the Protection System and the Fundamental Rights of Children and Adolescents, which punish the association of wrongdoers, human trafficking, and physical, psychological, and sexual assault against a minor. Fajardo Liriano was also subjected to the action of justice in the jurisdiction of Valverde province, where, likewise, she was imposed as a coercive measure of preventive detention through resolution 103-2025, dated February 24, 2025, for having sexually exploited a minor in Haiti, whom she also savagely beat to force her to receive clients, to the point of having caused her a facial wound, which demonstrates the unlawful, criminal and antisocial conduct of the accused.