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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WJLA/AP/CNN/ABC News) – The search for missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham now includes the use of an aerial drone — the first time, according to authorities, one has been used in the search for a missing person in the state of Virginia.

The addition of the drone to the search effort comes more than two weeks after Graham disappeared from Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall area.

The drone has a high-quality camera, and it will “look closer” at objects of interest, said John Coggin, chief engineer of the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership and one of the members of the team operating the drone.

As the drone worked from overhead Wednesday, more than 50 law enforcement personnel participated in the ground search of an area.

Police still aren’t saying much at all about their evidence against the suspect in Graham’s disappearance, but they seem to be working systematically to link his DNA to an expanding circle of attacks on women, a criminal defense expert suggested.

Between searches of Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr.’s car and apartment and his arrest on a charge of abducting Graham last week, police had ample opportunity to obtain genetic evidence connecting him to multiple attacks, said Steve Benjamin, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Matthew’s lawyer, James Camblos, said he met with his client for about 2½ hours earlier this week, but still doesn’t know what evidence police have.

Already, police said they have linked Matthew via DNA to Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington’s 2009 death, and previously, authorities had said DNA in Harrington’s case was connected to a 2005 abduction and sexual assault in Fairfax City.

At least two additional sheriffs’ offices in Virginia – Campbell County and Montgomery County – said they are now reviewing old murder cases to see if they are connected to Matthew.

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A North Carolina prison inmate used a smuggled mobile phone to keep in touch with kidnappers holding the father of a prosecutor who helped send him away for life, federal authorities said.

Five people were arrested and Frank Arthur Janssen, a Wake Forest man whose daughter prosecutes violent crimes, was rescued late Wednesday following a raid by the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team on an Atlanta apartment.

During the abduction, the kidnappers took a picture of Janssen tied up in a chair and sent it to his wife, threatening to torture and dismember him if she went to police, the FBI said in court documents.

Janssen’s kidnapping was related to his daughter’s prosecution of Kelvin Melton, who is serving a life sentence for ordering the shooting of a man in 2011, said John Strong, the FBI’s agent in charge for North Carolina.

Authorities say Melton, 49, had a mobile phone in his cell at Polk Correctional Institution in Butner, exchanging at least 123 calls and text messages with the alleged kidnappers in the past week. Authorities closed in on the suspects by tracking their mobile phones and listening to their calls.

According to testimony from his 2012 trial, Melton is a high-ranking member of the Bloods street gang from New York City who ordered a 21-year-old subordinate to travel to Raleigh and kill his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Court records show Melton has a long record of felony convictions in New York, the first being a 1979 robbery committed when he was 14.

The admitted triggerman, Jamil Herring Gressett, testified that he followed Melton’s orders for fear he or his loved ones would be killed if he didn’t. The victim survived a gunshot wound.

The prosecutor in the case was Wake County Assistant District Attorney Colleen Janssen.

In a handwritten 2012 letter in the court file, Melton protested that the prosecutor had not followed proper legal procedure, citing a specific state statute.

“Prosecutor must file accuser affidavit with clerk of court ‘prior’ to seeking an indictment, this affidavit must be on file, mandatory!” Melton wrote. “The accused indictment is not legal and is rendered in-valid.”

Melton’s amateur lawyering didn’t work. He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and being a habitual felon, resulting in a life sentence.

According to the FBI, a woman knocked on Frank Janssen’s door Saturday at his Wake Forest home in a quiet, upscale, golf course subdivision. Several people assaulted him and someone used a stun gun. He was then driven to Atlanta.

On Monday, his wife, Christie, started receiving a series of text messages from a mobile phone in Georgia. One of the texts said if law enforcement was contacted, “we will send (Mr. Janssen) back to you in 6 boxes and every chance we get we will take someone in your family to Italy and torture them and kill them … we will do drive by and gun down anybody.”

The messages made specific demands for the benefit of Melton, according to the FBI. Those demands were not spelled out in the court filings and authorities did not answer questions at a news conference Thursday.

A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, told The Associated Press that the kidnapping was an act of retaliation and that the communications of those involved suggested a link to the Bloods. The official had been briefed on the investigation.

At 12:19 a.m. Wednesday, Janssen’s wife received a text photograph of him tied up in a chair along with a message: “Tomorrow we call you again an if you can not tell me where my things are at tomorrow i will start torchering.”

At 8:20 p.m., the FBI says a call was placed by Melton from the prison to a phone associated with the kidnappers in Atlanta. The two male callers appear to be discussing how to dispose of a body:

“The first spot we are checking out is close to the house.”

“We want to make sure it’s in a secluded area and the ground is soft so we can go 3 feet deep.”

“Get a bag, put it over his head, and stuff something in his mouth.”

“However you feel like doing it, just do it.”

“Make sure to clean the area up. Don’t leave anything. Don’t leave any DNA behind.”

Following the call, authorities tried to enter Melton’s cell and he temporarily barred the door and smashed the phone. A few hours later, they located Janssen in Atlanta at the Forest Cove Apartments.

Charged with kidnapping were: Jenna Paulin Martin; Tiana Maynard; Jevante “Flame” Price; Michael “Hot” Montreal Gooden and Clifton James Roberts. Authorities also recovered a .45-caliber handgun, picks and a shovel, according to the FBI.

Those arrested appeared Thursday before a federal magistrate judge in Atlanta. They are due back in court for a bond hearing Tuesday, when they will each have a lawyer appointed by the judge.

According to prison records, Melton is being held on “maximum control” status after racking up several infractions over the past year, including being cited for possessing a weapon and twice for having a mobile phone.

In 2013, 747 mobile phones were confiscated from inmates in North Carolina’s prisons. So far this year, 166 have been seized.

Officials at the state Department of Public Safety concede many are smuggled in by prison employees bribed by inmates or their relatives. They are now investigating how Melton got the phone he allegedly used to help orchestrate the kidnapping of his prosecutor’s father.

“The department is deeply concerned about any corrupting influence by inmates against Adult Correction employees and will aggressively investigate and take action against offenders and staff involved in using cellphones to conduct criminal activity from inside prison walls,” Secretary Frank L. Perry said. “It will continue its ongoing efforts with increased intensity toward stopping contraband from entering any of its facilities.”

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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur heading toward Beijing on the morning of March 8, but lost contact with air traffic control an hour later and disappeared off the radar.

No trace of the plane and the 239 people on board have been found and few details about what could have happened to the plane have been released.

Here’s what we know now as of now about the investigation into missing flight MH370.

“Indications” Send Searchers into Indian Ocean

The U.S. moved the USS Kidd into an area where the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea merge because there are “indications” the plane may have crashed into the water there, a senior official told ABC News. That is hundreds of miles to the west of flight MH370′s flight path, which was northeast towards Beijing.

The Pentagon official said the U.S. didn’t have detailed information about why they think it went into the Indian Ocean, but that it may have flown four to five hours after its last contact with radar and gone into the sea there.

Malaysian officials admit that the plane could have continued to fly for several hours after it dropped off the radar.

They dismissed as “inaccurate” a Wall Street Journal report that the plane’s Rolls Royce engine sent signals after radar lost contact. The engines, which are designed to transmit bursts of data to ground during the flight, did not convey any meaningful data about the plane’s location or disappearance, they said.

Malaysia, which continues to be the lead country investigating the disappearance, said that the last concrete data they have from the plane is a radar contact at 1:07 a.m. local time.

Chinese satellite images that were thought to show possible plane wreckage led to a search that came up empty.

The Search Expands:

The search has been expanded again, now into the Andaman Sea and the northern edge of the Indian Ocean.

Malaysia has asked India for help in searching for radar contacts with the plane and for searching for the plane.

More than 40 ships and 39 aircraft from 12 countries are scanning the Straits of Malacca, the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea for signs of the plane but have not found any debris yet.

The search has been broadened to encompass 27,000 square nautical miles, an area roughly the size of Indiana.
The Timeline

Flight MH370 departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, headed for Beijing, China, around 12:41 a.m. local time on Saturday. It showed up on radar two minutes later.

The last reading from MH370′s transponder was at 1:21 a.m. The last sighting of the plane on radar was at 1:30 a.m. At the time the plane was on its route over the South China Sea heading for the southern tip of Vietnam. An air traffic controller told the plane’s captain he was about to be handed over to air traffic control out of Ho Chi Minh City. The pilot responded, “All right, good night.” The pilot never made contact with air traffic control in Ho Chi Minh City.

Authorities have discovered that a flight showed up on the country’s military defense radar at 2:15 a.m. local time in the Straits of Malacca, hundreds of miles due west of their last contact point and far from its route to Beijing. They said today that contact could possibly have been MH370.

The military radar also showed something make a turn back, meaning some aircraft reversing course, but they are not sure whether it was flight MH370. Because of the uncertain radar data, they are not sure of the plane’s last position.

The Investigation

Aviation experts say there are two possible causes of the disappearance: mechanical error or human error on board, which could include an electrical outage, a fire, a hijacking or bomb, and many other reasons. There is no hard evidence one way or another at his point, they say.

The transponders on board the plane that transmit signal’s about the plane’s location were somehow disabled or turned off, according to authorities.

Investigators are looking at how and why they transponders were not functioning.

Authorities have not ruled out terrorism but have found no evidence of it.

The Passengers

Four passengers who were waiting on the stand-by list to board flight MH370 were given seats on the plane after four ticketed passengers did not show up for the flight.

239 people were on board the flight, made up of 227 passengers (including one infant and one toddler) and 12 crew members.

Three Americans, including two children, are among the missing. Philip Wood, 50, an IBM executive, had just come from Texas where he was visiting family on his way to Beijing.

Fourteen nationalities were on board, though 152 passengers were Chinese.

Twenty passengers on the plane worked for the Austin, Texas, company Freescale Semiconductor. Another passenger, Chng Mei Ling, worked as an engineer for the Pennsylvania company Flexsys America LP.

Pilot Zahari Ahmad Shah, 53, was a veteran pilot who joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 and had over 18,000 flying hours.
Fake Passports Used By Two Passengers

Investigators discovered that two passengers used stolen passports, one from Austria and one from Italy, to board the flight.

Interpol identified the two as Iranians Seyed Mohammad Reza Delavar, 29, and Pouria Nourmohammadi, 18, and said they have no known links to militant groups, downplaying the possibility they were terrorists.

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ANTIOCH, Calif. — Antioch Police are praising a Target Store employee in Pittsburg for helping bring a child’s kidnapping ordeal to an end.

“When I first spotted him in the store, I thought he was going to shoplift,” said 22-year-old Roxanna Ramirez.

Ramirez had no way of knowing the stranger she was watching, 43-year-old David Douglas, would later become the prime suspect in the armed abduction of a seven year old girl in Antioch.

What Ramirez noticed, was a shopper behaving suspiciously.

“He had a backpack, and he was picking things up and putting them down in the men’s department,” recalled Ramirez.

As a loss prevention specialist, it’s her job to monitor unusual behavior, so she followed Douglas for a time, even asking him is he needed help. He said no.

Then, she went to her office and watched him on surveillance cameras.

“He was fidgeting around, acting really weird, abnormal. I don’t know, it just didn’t make me feel comfortable,” Ramirez elaborated.

After he left the store, she continued to watch him remotely as he went to his car, and rifled through his backpack, occasionally leaving the car to pace and smoke, then returning.

“At one point, I saw him grab his steering wheel and start to shake it, and that was really off to me,” Ramirez noted. “That’s when I really know something was wrong with him.”

She wrote his license plate number in the little notebook she always carries, and didn’t think about it again until that night, when her girlfriend told her a child had been abducted.

“She read the description of the car, and I was like, ‘hold on’, that sounds like somebody I saw earlier at my job! It fits the same description,” said Ramirez. “I was like ‘It’s kinda weird’ and she said, ‘you should call.’”

Ramirez called the plate in, and it led to Douglas, which led to the Antioch Marina, where police have had encounters with him before. He was apprehended, and the girl reunited with her family, four hours after she was taken.

Police came to Ramirez’s door about midnight to tell her that her tip had made the difference.

“They said I helped crack the case, and my heart just dropped, like, really? I couldn’t believe it” said a still incredulous Ramirez.

“She is a true hero,” acting police Capt. Tammany Brooks told KTVU. “We at the Antioch Police Department applaud people like Roxanna Ramirez who are willing to step forward to make our community a safer place. It’s a collaborative effort.”

Ramirez said she is simply glad she could play a part in bringing the young victim to safety.

“I’m happy that she’s home, and gets to spend the rest of this time with her family because not all kidnappings end like this. It feels really good.”

And she hopes her experience encourages everyone to listen to their gut instincts. In Roxanna’s words, when something doesn’t feel right, “Run with it.”

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TUCSON — The two girls, ages 12 and 13, were barefoot and trembling as they pounded on a neighbor’s door shortly before 4 a.m. Tuesday. The couple inside were shocked when the girls told them they had been imprisoned in a home across the way.

A day later, that neighbor was still at a loss.

“I didn’t even know there were children living in that home,” Phillip said. He and his wife, Alice, who declined to give their last name, helped the girls calm down and then called police, though the sisters had begged them to instead phone their grandmother.

Tucson police Wednesday said three sisters — the oldest is 17 — had been confined to their bedrooms for months, where music or a static sound played at all hours and surveillance cameras were pointed at their beds 24 hours a day.

Sometimes they weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom, forced to relieve themselves in their bedroom closets, police said.

Authorities said the family moved into the Tucson neighborhood in August, but the girls said they had been imprisoned for up to two years in previous homes.

Sophia and Fernando Richter, the girls’ mother and stepfather, were taken into custody shortly after police arrived and were booked into Pima County Jail.

The stepfather, 34, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, emotional child abuse, physical child abuse and sexual abuse with a person under 15 years of age. The mother, 32, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, emotional child abuse and physical child abuse. A judge set their bail at $100,000 and $75,000, respectively. They did not enter pleas.

Phillip, the neighbor, said he and his wife opened the door only because the girls were so distraught. “They kept saying their stepfather had a knife and tried to break into their room,” he said. “They were also afraid that the mother was going to be killed by their stepfather.”

The girls, who told police they had escaped the single-story suburban home through an alarmed bedroom window, appeared unkempt and smelled of urine and body odor, Phillip said. He also said the girls were worried about their older sister because she was still in the house.

When officers responded to the Richter home, they found the 17-year-old in a locked bedroom with loud hip-hop music blaring from speakers facing the bed.

“I can tell you that the music was so loud that she had no idea what was going on around there,” Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor said at a news conference Wednesday. “She was totally surprised to see police there.”

Phillip said he heard loud music whenever the couple were out but had figured they wanted to make it appear someone was home so nobody would break in.

The 17-year-old kept a satchel around her neck with a small calendar where she documented in detail the number of days she had been confined and the food she had consumed, Villaseñor said, adding that the girls were fed once or twice a day and were kept in filthy living conditions.

An elaborate alarm system had been attached to the two bedroom doors, and vents were shuttered with duct tape. The space between the bedroom doors and the floor were blocked off with some sort of cloth.

“It seemed to be a way of soundproofing the rooms,” Tucson Police Sgt. Chris Widmer said.

Villaseñor said the locks to the bedrooms were from the inside and, except for the alarm system, it appeared the girls could have opened the doors on their own.

“But something kept them from doing that,” he said. “Until you’ve been in those shoes, you really can’t understand. … I will say that they did do things that made these girls feel isolated and made real sure that they didn’t feel like they were in control.”

Villaseñor said the two bedrooms were monitored with security cameras and that the girls had to signal to the camera if they needed to use the bathroom. A parent would escort each to the bathroom and back through a hallway where a barrier blocked the view to the rest of the house.

There were also times when they were not allowed to use the bathroom, Villaseñor said. Investigators found jars of what appeared to be human waste along with piles of clothes contaminated with urine inside a closet.

Relatives never visited because they believed the family was living in San Diego, police said, noting that the mother had a cellphone number with a San Diego area code.

Villaseñor said the girls had not attended school for the last two years, though their mother said they had been home-schooled. Phillip said one of the girls told him, “We’re not allowed to go to school.” The neighbor described the girls as polite and articulate.

The three girls are in a group home for now. “We didn’t want to separate them,” Villaseñor said. “We made sure they are together.”

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The family of a kidnapped Louisiana mother tracked down and killed the father of her child in the abandoned house where he was allegedly holding her prisoner, authorities said.

Bethany Arceneaux, 29, of Duson, La., was abducted in the parking lot of a daycare where she was picking up her 2-year-old at approximately 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Department Captain Kip Judice told ABCNews.com.

Witnesses saw the suspect, Scott Thomas, allegedly force Arceneaux into his white Buick LeSabre, before driving off, Lafayette Police Department spokesman Paul Mouton told ABCNews.com.

Thomas, 29, of Leonville, La., is the father of Arceneaux’s child, Judice said. The woman had a restraining order against Thomas, but Judice said he did not know when it was filed.

The child was left behind in the woman’s car, and was later taken into custody by the woman’s mother, Mouton said.

Later that evening, law enforcement officials found Thomas’ car near an abandoned sugarcane field in a rural area of Lafayette Parish, La., Judice said.

One of Arceneaux’s shoes was found in the car, while the other had been left in the parking lot of the daycare where she had been last seen.

Authorities searched the sugarcane field Wednesday night and all day Thursday, but to no avail, Judice said. The cane towers as high as eight feet tall and was “a brutal search area” for officials, he said.

It wasn’t until Friday morning, when Arceneaux’s family members conducted their own search in the same area that they came upon a secluded, abandoned house behind a cluster of trees.

The house was directly across the street from the field where Thomas abandoned his car, but only the home’s roof was visible from the road, Judice said.

“[The family] converged on a piece of property about a mile from where the car was found,” Judice said. “One of the family members heard what he thought was a scream.”

Arceneaux’s cousin approached the home, kicked in the door in and entered, Judice said. Inside, he found Thomas with the woman. Thomas then began stabbing Arceneaux, and a confrontation ensued.

“The cousin, who was armed, began firing several shots at Thomas,” Judice said. “After a couple of shots, [Arceneaux] was able to get free of him and they escorted her out of the house.”

Arcenaux suffered several stab wounds and was taken by ambulance to Lafayette General Medical Center, where she is in stable condition, Judice said. It is not known if Arceneaux had been stabbed before her cousin found her inside the home, officials said.

Meanwhile, officers who heard the gun shots fired surrounded the home, Judice said. Upon entering, they found Thomas’ lifeless body on the ground. He had sustained several gunshot wounds.

Thomas’ cause of death is not known, Judice said. An autopsy on the body will be conducted by Lafayette Parish Coroner Ken Odinet, but it is not known when it will take place.

ABC News’ attempts to reach Odinet were not immediately successful.

Thomas did not own the abandoned home, Judice said. At this point, there is no known connection between Thomas and the property’s owners.

Arceneaux told investigators that the home was the only place she remembers being held hostage, Judice said. She said she had not eaten or drunk anything since her abduction on Wednesday.

No charges have been filed against the man who shot Thomas, and it is unlikely that the man will be charged, Judice said.

“In the state of Louisiana, you have a right to protect yourself and others from imminent bodily harm,” he said. “We believe at this point, based on evidence and statements collected, that this guy was acting in defense of Ms. Arceneaux and thus, was within the state law.”

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PALM BAY — Two dozen Orlando children younger than 18 were crammed into the back of an older model Chevrolet work van, driven to Palm Bay on Friday and dropped off to spend more than 10 hours selling cheap items door-to-door, Palm Bay police said. If they had to use the bathroom, they were told to use the bushes. If they were thirsty, to ask residents for water, police said.

Police arrested two of the men behind the operation, which authorities said provides a window into a growing trend of human trafficking: luring children and young adults with the promise of an honest wage, transporting them in often unsafe conditions and sending them off to conduct unsupervised sales in unfamiliar neighborhoods.

“They were told to sell their goods at all costs. They rounded them up and stuffed them into the back of a van, brought over from Orlando. Food, water, it was rationed. And they were told the only way they could get anything was to sell,” said Yvonne Martinez, spokeswoman for the Palm Bay Police Department.

Monday, the driver of the van and owner of an Orlando-based group called Teens Against Drugs and Alcohol, 39-year-old Johnny Carrasquillo, and 20-year-old John Saint Hilaire, 20, faced a judge on 24 counts each of human trafficking.

Brevard Judge Kathleen Clarke ordered both men, who were arrested by Palm Bay police Friday, to be held on a $5.6 million bond each at the Brevard County Jail Complex.

Both also were charged with 24 counts of child abuse and eight counts each of employing a minor child, reports show. The case will be sent to the Brevard County state attorney’s office, where prosecutors will decide whether to press formal charges.

In the Palm Bay case, the children were picked up by 9 a.m. in Orlando and driven to Palm Bay in a van so crowded that some sat on laps and on the floor. Each row of seats was separated by makeshift plywood partitions that blocked the only exit door, Martinez said.

The teens were to be picked up, after a day of sales, about 8:30 p.m. and would not get home until close to midnight, police said. Police said it was a potential tragedy in the making.

Late Friday, Palm Bay police received a message from a Department of Children and Families agent that underage children were roaming Palm Bay streets selling cheap goods.

Martinez said the children were picked up and brought to the Palm Bay Police Department, where officers contacted DCF agents and bought pizza. “We had pizza for them. They were really hungry. And they were hovering over the water fountain,” Martinez said.

The children were turned over to their parents.

Orlando company

The Orlando-based company, Teens Against Drugs and Alcohol, bills itself as a unique educational program that helps “young people from all backgrounds become more responsible citizens,” according to its website. The site featured an open letter by Carrasquillo that was dated Sept. 9. In the letter listing Carrasquillo as the executive director, he warns supporters about four former team leaders conducting unauthorized sales.

“We have notified the police of these activities and have given them the information they need to stop them, but since they are operating in hiding and they look like us, is hard for the police to intervene unless a customer calls or we run in to them,” Carrasquillo wrote.

The website also includes a parental consent form, although Palm Bay police were not sure how much parents knew about the conditions the teens worked under.

One 13-year-old dropped off in Palm Bay told officers she was frightened after someone told her a sex offender lived in the neighborhood where she was walking. “She was scared and was walking alone on her route,” Martinez said. Carrasquillo told the girl to “cross the street,” and keep selling her items, according to police.

Several other young girls told police that Carrasquillo would make them “pull their bra away from their chest and shake it to see if any money falls out,” the police report said.

Growing trend

Experts have warned over the years that door-to-door sales operations using underage children was an emerging trend of human trafficking nationwide.

In 2010, Florida State University, in conjunction with the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, released a report that showed Florida was a top hub for human trafficking in labor and sexual exploitation.

Labor trafficking was considered the most prevalent type in Florida, with abuse reported primarily in agriculture, tourism and hospitality industries.

“With sales crews, most of the victims are young adults, many of the victims are from low income settings looking for opportunities,” said Alden Pinkham, a case coordinator with the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

In some cases, young adults answer ads left behind at bus or train stations to be part of door-to-door sales crews. Many of the participants see it as a chance to travel and even enhance their public-speaking capabilities, Pinkham said.

“We see a lot of fraud and coercion in the offers of that free ride. The victims begin to realize that there is no paycheck, no free ride back home, so they keep working despite the conditions. In my experience, I’ve never talked to any crew member who’s gotten a paycheck. It’s just a draw, maybe $15 a day split between others for food,” Pinkham said.

There have been a number of national stories involving “sales crews,” including cases of deadly traffic accidents, sexual assault and what police say was an attack on a teen by a resident in Volusia County. Friday, police also linked at least two of the juveniles to the theft of a golf cart.

When police located Carrasquillo, along with Saint Hilaire, they also found several teens in the van. Police said Carrasquillo said another van had been used, too.

Carrasquillo and Saint Hilaire remain in custody. No new court date has been set.

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HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A man arrested as part of a multistate kidnapping and human trafficking investigation pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge of transporting a woman across state lines for prostitution.

Ruperto Moncillo Flores and Jacobo Feliciano-Francisco were arrested June 27 after a distraught woman walked into a police department in Hattiesburg, Miss., and said she had been abducted in Panama City Beach, Fla.

The woman had been a witness in a prior human trafficking case, which led to numerous convictions in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Annette Williams said during the change of plea hearing for Flores that the victim heard her abductors call someone to take her to a “house of prostitution” in Baton Rouge, La.

Williams said Flores, of Lawrenceville, Ga., was arrested in Jones County, Miss., when his van broke down before he made it to pick up the kidnapping victim in Hattiesburg. Police were on the lookout for someone coming for the victim.

Williams said Flores had no knowledge of the abduction, but was asked to transport the woman to Louisiana for prostitution.

Another woman with Flores when he was arrested told police that Flores was taking her from Georgia to Louisiana for that purpose. It led to the charge against Flores — a violation of the Mann Act.

Flores faces up to 10 years at sentencing on Jan. 16.

Flores, a short, rotund man with thinning salt-and-pepper hair, was shackled and wore a red and white striped jail outfit during the sentencing. He needed a translator for the hearing in U.S. District Court in Hattiesburg. At one point, his lawyer said Flores wanted to make sure the court understood that he was not involved in the abduction.

Williams said the abduction started an investigation into a “multistate prostitution ring and human trafficking organization.”

Feliciano-Francisco, also known as Uriel Castillo-Ochoa, is charged in U.S. District Court in Panama City, Fla., with kidnapping the former witness. He pleaded not guilty on Aug. 12 to five charges, including kidnapping and retaliating against a witness.

Another suspect is being sought in the case.

Authorities said the victim was in her yard in Florida when Feliciano-Francisco and an unidentified man forced her into a car and drove to Feliciano-Francisco’s house in Hattiesburg. Investigators say Feliciano-Francisco sexually assaulted the victim and planned to force her to work as a prostitute in Louisiana.

Williams said phone records corroborate that the abductors called Flores that day.

The kidnapping victim escaped through a bathroom window that evening and went to the Hattiesburg Police Department about 6:30 p.m.

Feliciano-Francisco was arrested at the house that night. Flores was arrested on Interstate 59 in Jones County.

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In Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, Mendel Epstein made a name for himself as the rabbi to see for women struggling to divorce their husbands. Among the Orthodox, a divorce requires the husband’s permission, known as a “get,” and tales abound of women whose husbands refuse to consent.

While it’s common for rabbis to take action against defiant husbands, such as barring them from synagogue life, Rabbi Epstein, 68, took matters much further, according to the authorities.

For hefty fees, he orchestrated the kidnapping and torture of reluctant husbands, charging their wives as much as $10,000 for a rabbinical decree permitting violence and $50,000 to hire others to carry out the deed, according to federal charges unsealed on Thursday morning.

Rabbi Epstein, along with another rabbi, Martin Wolmark, who is the head of a yeshiva, as well as several men in what the authorities called the “kidnap team,” appeared in Federal District Court in Trenton after a sting operation in which an undercover federal agent posed as an Orthodox Jewish woman soliciting Rabbi Epstein’s services.

Paul Fishman, the United States attorney for New Jersey, said in an interview that investigators have “uncovered evidence” of about a couple dozen victims. Many are men from Brooklyn who were taken to New Jersey as part of the kidnappings.

In court, the lead prosecutor in the case, R. Joseph Gribko, explained how the abductions were carried out. “They beat them up, tied them up, shocked them with Tasers and stun guns until they got what they want,” Mr. Gribko, an assistant United States attorney, said.

Mr. Gribko said the defendants had been motivated by money, not faith. While the case might surprise some New Yorkers, accounts of such kidnappings have percolated through the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn for years. In 1996, for instance, a rabbinic council in Williamsburg issued a statement denouncing the rogue men who subjected husbands to such beatings, according to a news report.

Rabbi Epstein was sued in the late 1990s by another Brooklyn rabbi, Abraham Rubin, who claimed that a group of men shoved him into a van as he left synagogue, hooded him, and applied electric shocks to his genitals in an effort to force him to provide a get to his wife. The lawsuit was dismissed.

According to newspaper accounts from the late 90s, other men, too, have come forward with similar tales of curbside abductions and mistreatment.

How such violent practices, if proved, would have been able to persist for so long may be an indicator of the challenges that local law enforcement agencies face in trying conduct investigations of insular religious groups including the ultra-Orthodox.

Rabbi Epstein seemed confident that local authorities wouldn’t investigate too closely. In a recorded meeting with the female undercover F.B.I. agent, Rabbi Epstein explained that his preferred torture techniques, like electric shocks, offered little physical evidence of abuse, according to the complaint. Without obvious visible injuries, Rabbi Epstein said, the police were unlikely to inquire too deeply if any victims came forward.

“Basically the reaction of the police is, if the guy does not have a mark on him then, uh, is there some Jewish crazy affair here, they don’t want to get involved,” Rabbi Epstein explained, according to the criminal complaint.

Rabbi Epstein made his living appearing before the rabbinical courts, known as beit din, where he advocated on behalf of a spouse seeking an exit, another rabbi said. He took a special interest in the constraints that wives faced, speaking about the rights of women in terms not often heard in his deeply conservative community.

When two undercover F.B.I. agents — one posing as a woman seeking a divorce, the other as her brother — asked a rabbi for help, the rabbi explained how Rabbi Epstein might be able to assist them.

You need special rabbis who are going to take this thing and see it through to the end,” Rabbi Martin Wolmark, a respected figure who presides over a yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., said in a recorded telephone call on Aug. 7. He described Rabbi Epstein as “a hired hand” who could help, according to the criminal complaint in the case.

When the undercover agents met with Rabbi Epstein a week later, he said that he was confident he could secure a get once his “tough guys” had made their threats.

“I guarantee you that if you’re in the van, you’d give a get to your wife,” he said to the male undercover agent posing as the brother. “You probably love your wife, but you’d give a get when they finish with you.”

The undercover female F.B.I. agent told Rabbi Epstein that she wanted to divorce her husband, described as a businessman in South America, who refused to grant her request. Rabbi Epstein urged her to lure the man to New Jersey, which she pledged to do.

Next Rabbi Epstein and Rabbi Wolmark convened their own rabbinical court, complete with legalisms and formalities, to issue a religious edict “authorizing the use of violence to obtain a forced get,” according to court records. The undercover agent offered testimony before the two rabbis, who were joined by other religious figures.

Told that the husband was arriving in New Jersey, eight of Rabbi Epstein’s associates met at a New Jersey warehouse to finalize the kidnapping plan, according to court documents. At that point F.B.I. agents moved in to arrest the group. The agents seized masks, ropes, scalpels and feather quills and ink bottles used for recording the get they anticipated.

On Thursday, the 10 defendants were denied bail after appearing in court in Trenton on the kidnapping conspiracy charges.

Juda J. Epstein, the lawyer for Rabbi Epstein, declined to comment.

A neighbor, Rose Davis, who lives opposite his home in the Kensington section of Brooklyn described him as a respected figure. Ms. Davis said she was skeptical of the charges, and suggested they might be the concoctions of enemies he had made as an expert in divorce work: “There’s always a loser,” she said, referring to divorce cases.

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(CNN) — A flight to America’s adult playground, Las Vegas, had an unusual passenger last week: a 9-year-old boy traveling on his own, apparently without a ticket.

The boy went through security with all other passengers, the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement, but officials are still trying to figure out how he did it — and how he then got on the flight.

Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said the crew of Delta Flight 1651 “became suspicious of the child’s circumstances” during the flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. Crew members got in touch with authorities in Las Vegas and turned the boy over to Child Protective Services, Hogan said in a statement.

“Fortunately, the flight crew took appropriate actions to ensure the child’s safety, so the story does have a good ending,” he said.
Delta said it takes the incident “very seriously” and is working with authorities.

The airline spells out its policy about children flying solo plainly on its website.

Children between the ages of 5 and 14 may travel alone as part of the unaccompanied minor program. Someone from Delta pays special attention to the children, walks them on board, shows them their seats and even introduces them to the cockpit crew, time permitting, Delta says, adding, “Kids love this part.

Airport officials reviewed security footage and don’t think the child had a ticket, CNN affiliate KARE reported.

The boy, a runaway from the Twin Cities, spent a good amount of time at the airport before boarding the plane, KARE said.

He was there the day before, the station reported, citing airport officials. He passed his time by taking luggage from a carousel, bringing it to an airport eatery and then ditching it, asking a server to watch the bag “while he went to the restroom.”

The following day the child took the train to the airport, cleared security and made it to Las Vegas nearly without detection.

“Obviously, the fact that the child’s actions weren’t detected until he was in flight is concerning,” Hogan wrote. Still, 33 million people travel through Minneapolis’ airport every year, he noted. “I don’t know of another instance in my 13 years at the airport in which anything similar has happened,” he said.

Man pleads guilty to slapping crying boy on Delta flight

A flight security expert said it’s very concerning that the child made it through several security checks.

“All of this (security) since 9/11 has been to keep us safe. And it has, but still we have gaping holes, and this is a perfect example of it,” Terry Trippler of ThePlaneRules.com told KARE.

The incident may be a first for Minneapolis, but over the years other airports have had similar incidents.

In 2007, another 9-year-old managed to fly from Seattle to Phoenix to San Antonio before being found out. He had a boarding pass, though. His mother told CNN her son gave ticketing agents a fake name.

Last year an 11-year-old boy in Manchester, England, managed to slip away from his mother during a shopping trip. He made it all the way to Rome without a boarding pass or a passport. But any Colosseum dreams were dashed. He never left the airport in Rome and was returned to his parents the same day.

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