After months of evading arrest, an alleged leader in an international
gang-run brothel operation was arraigned in Houston federal court
Thursday following a dramatic arrest this week in Mexico.
William Alberto Lopez, 28, of Houston, was indicted by a
federal grand jury in November, along with two dozen others, on
allegations he was a pimp and enforcer for a brothel linked to members
of the Southwest Cholos gang in Gulfton. The Bellaire-area group
specialized in recruiting undocumented women and compelling them through
violence to work as prostitutes, and tracked them down even after they
fled across borders to get away from the underground sex business,
authorities allege.
RELATED: Feds: Gang brothel enslaved women in Gulfton
Officials said Lopez assumed a false identity using
fraudulent Mexican identification and became combative as Mexican
authorities attempted to detain him Wednesday in Mexico. According to
court documents, he repeatedly stated that he refused to return to the
United States.
Lopez waived his right to a bail hearing Thursday before
U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy. He is set for trial along with the
other defendants on Oct. 9. He faces 22 criminal charges including
conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking through force, threats, fraud
and coercion, transporting people across borders to engage in
prostitution
A prosecutor told a federal judge at a detention hearing
last fall that Lopez, a Houston native, was one of five sons helping
their mother, co-defendant Maria Angelica "Patty" Moreno-Reyna, run the
brothel for eight years in a southwest Houston apartment complex. But
Lopez was also in charge of what Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Goldman
called a "farm team" brothel in Cancun, Mexico, where women were trained
before being illegally shuttled across the U.S. border and up to
Houston to work at the gang's main brothel at a modest apartment
complex.
Lopez was among the most ruthless in his treatment of the women who worked at the brothel, witnesses said.
Gabrielle Banks covers federal court for the Houston Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter and send her email at gabrielle.banks@chron.com.
