In January 2003, Alana Okhotina 35, a Russian national of West Hollywood, a city in the county of Los Angeles, smuggled her eighteen year old niece from a small town near St. Petersburg into the United States from Russia and forced her to work as a prostitute to repay her smuggling debt. Investigators said Okhotina paid $6,000 to obtain a fraudulent visa for her niece and then forced her to have sex with men in February 2003 in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Okhotina took the money that her niece received for prostituting herself.
Her niece, told investigators that Okhotina hid her passport, destroyed her plane ticket home, and subjected her to regular beatings, threats and rape by strangers. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. The defendant threatened to kill the victim and her family if she did not comply, and told her that she would be arrested if she went to the police because she was here in the United States illegally.
The younger woman, who has since returned to Russia, was freed after she called police.
A grand jury charged Okhotina with federal crimes including sex trafficking and transporting a person for prostitution. Her trial was set for July 5. On December 6, 2005, Okhotina entered a guilty plea to one count of trafficking in persons for servitude, in exchange for the dropping of other federal charges. She had just finished serving a 26-month sentence for a state pandering conviction related to her niece when she was taken into custody in May by U.S. marshals on human trafficking and other federal charges.
The government dropped most of the federal charges, however, in exchange for her guilty for trafficking in persons for servitude. The offense carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but Okhotina's plea bargain called for her to receive 18-21 months in light of the state prison time she had already served.
In Okhotina's plea agreement, she admitted that in January 2003, she paid for a ticket for her niece to fly from Russia to Los Angeles, where she lived with Okhotina at her apartment.
Soon after, Okhotina took possession of her niece's passport and told her she would have to work as a prostitute, the court document states.
Okhotina coerced her niece by telling her she would be arrested if she went to the police because she was in the United States illegally, according to the plea agreement. Okhotina also admitted in her plea agreement that she obstructed justice by sending letters and making telephone calls from jail in which she attempted to influence how witnesses would testify at her trial in this case.
Okhotina was sentenced April 12 2006, to 21 months in federal prison, by U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz.
This case is the result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Labor, and the Los Angeles Police Department. The case was jointly prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office and the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
United States District Court for the Central District of California
Attorney General’s Annual Report to Congress on U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in persons. June 2006, p. 20.
http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/annualreports/tr2005/agreporthumantrafficing2005.pdf
Lexis Nexis
The Associated Press State & Local Wire, December 7, 2005, Wednesday, BC cycle
The Daily News of Los Angeles, April 13, 2006 Thursday Valley edition
City News Service, December 7, 2005, April 12, 2006
States News Service, December 6, 2005
US Fed News, December 6, 2005
Associated Press Worldstream, May 17, 2005
