WASHINGTON - A former Illinois spa and massage parlor owner who used violence and threats of violence to force three women from the Ukraine and one from Belarus to work for him without pay and, at times, little to no subsistence over a two-year period was sentenced Monday to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole, the Justice Department said.
Alex Campbell, 45, of Glenview, Ill., was sentenced in his conviction of charges of sex-trafficking, forced labor, harboring illegal aliens, confiscating passports to further forced labor and extortion involving four foreign women whom he mentally and physically abused while forcing them to work for him.
Campbell, who called himself “Cowboy,” also was ordered by U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman to pay $124,000 restitution.
“Alex Campbell abused women by violently coercing them into labor and commercial sex. By working together with law enforcement and community groups, those women were able to testify about that abuse,” said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. “Today’s sentence is a victory not only for the Department and the Cook County Human Trafficking Task Force, but also for those women who so bravely came forward and told the truth about their exploitation.”
More in Tuesday's Washington Post.
