do that, but practically i could not because i was too proud to do that. that s when an acquaintance introduced her to the owner of several chicago massage parlors. a businessman named alex campbell. the first time i talked to him was over the phone. there was nothing suspicious about him. just, like, regular person, talked to me about a job. even though julia has no experience as a massage therapist, campbell offers her a job. in the beginning, he was her knight in shining armor. she was in a situation. he came along and saved her from that situation. he gave her a job. he gave her a car to get around in. he gave her an apartment to live in and she was paid very well. after a few months of constant attention, julia reluctantly begins a romantic relationship with campbell. i would not say that i liked him so much at first, but i think i got used to him, and then i realized that it was not even my decision, it
arrested, again, for selling young women. and many of those women like julia sported that telltale horseshoe tattoo. i came up with several other girls with the exact same tattoos. when i started seeing all of this come together, i had reason to fear this girl was in serious danger, and i needed to get her in a safe haven before he finds her. julia, who had a masters in education from ukraine, struck vanhorn as an unlikely girlfriend to such a violent felon. she d come to the u.s. to become an you a au pair. my plan was to improve my english and learn the culture of this country. after working three months caring for a family of six, the family let her go on thanksgiving weekend, leaving her homeless in a foreign country. the agency that placed her offered no help. my agency told me, you can call your parents and ask for money, and theoretically i could
just, like, happened. then things start to change. he acted like a very jealous man, and every day it was getting worse and worse and worse. campbell s behavior becomes increasingly threatening and violent. it began to turn around where he started to keep the money and just give her enough money to get something to eat. he had gotten ahold of her passport and her visa and all her immigration documents. she had asked for that stuff back, and he refused to give it to her. so she didn t have no idea where to go, what to do. he started to even yell at me for just no reason, didn t know what was going on. it went to the point when i was really afraid of him. julia soon realizes she is not alone. campbell had four other ukrainian women working at the spa. all were young and all were in the country illegally. they have to totally obey him, whatever he says.
trained to look for signs of trafficking notified federal investigators. when i first met julia, she was a very scared young lady. julia reported her boyfriend had beaten and threatened her. he said many times that he would kill me and nothing would stop him. she feared for her life and she feared she could be killed by him and thought she would be killed by him for going to the police. vanhorn plugged julia s so-called boyfriend s name into the computer. before i started this case, i never even heard of alex campbell. once i put him in the system, i found an extensive criminal history. in 1986, campbell shot his way into a house, then held two women captive in a tense standoff with chicago police. convicted of attempted murder, home invasion and kidnapping, campbell served ten years. after his release, he was
if not, they will have to pay for that. julia recalled she first witnessed campbell s brutality one night after campbell took his staff to dinner. they ended up taking pictures and in one of the pictures, one of the girls wasn t smiling to mr. campbell s liking. and he took them all back to the spa and proceeded to beat this girl and broke two pool sticks over her shins of her legs. a security system in campbell s office kept the girls under constant surveillance. the spa, there were cameras everywhere, so anything you say, anything you, like, do, that looks bad in his eyes, he would just call you to his office and then you will be punished. the girls at the spa were told never to speak to each other or to their customers. when julia broke this rule, she was called to campbell s office. she was stripped of her