GUILTY CA - 15-year-old girl held captive at marijuana grow farm

[mysticrose]

15-year-old girl held captive at marijuana grow farm

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX/CNN) - Police say a 15-year-old girl kidnapped in California was enslaved at a marijuana grow operation.

The teen's captors forced her to work and used her as a sex slave.

Neighbors in Clearlake can't believe it, but the feds say right next to a major marijuana grow operation, Ryan Balletto and Patrick Pearmain kept a teenage girl as a sex slave.

The two men are in federal lockup, facing a list of charges that could get them life in prison. The metal toolbox where the girl was held captive was right next to a trailer on the grow operation property.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/389951/28/15-year-old-girl-held-captive-at-marijuana-grow-farm

 

[mysticrose]

Feds: Pot farmers kept rape victim in box

A 15-year-old kidnap victim was held in a metal toolbox fitted with breathing holes by two Lake County marijuana growers, who sexually assaulted the girl and forced her to trim their plants, federal prosecutors allege.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, one of the men, 30-year-old Ryan Alan Balletto, kidnapped the girl from Los Angeles sometime before late April. He allegedly took her to his rural property near Clear Lake, where he kept an arsenal of weapons and a collection of sexual bondage gear.

The girl told a federal investigator that Balletto and Patrick Steven Pearmain, 24, twice put her in a 4-foot-long, 2-foot-wide and 2-foot-tall box for a total of three days. The girl said Balletto called her a "trouper" because she didn't scream, records show

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Feds-Pot-farmers-kept-rape-victim-in-box-4687701.php

 

[mysticrose]

Disturbing Details Emerge In Story Of Valley Teen Held As Sex Slave

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Authorities say a 15-year-old Valley runaway was held for days against her will as a sex slave on a pot farm in Northern California.

Federal authorities say Ryan Balletto, 30 and Patrick Pearmain, 25, ran the pot farm, made the girl work the business and kept her inside a small box with air holes and a hose to clean it out.

Residents of Lake County, where the girl was held, were shocked and angered by the allegations.

“Just disgusting, terrifying,” said one.

“That’s creepy, that’s weird,” said another.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013...ge-in-story-of-valley-teen-held-as-sex-slave/

 

[Herding Cats]

Was there a missing thread for this young lady? I note that it said 'runaway', so probably not...

How horrific for her. I am glad she's free, and that these (unusual) people are in custody. Now, if only the justice system here in CA would actually work, yanno?

Best-
Herding Cats

 

[mysticrose]

This is concerns me.......
There are alot of kids classified as runaways and never given another thought. If there are others, I pray there alive to come forward...

Snipped......................................

Police reportedly said the victim is now in a safe place and there is some indication that there may be other victims. Authorities urge those that might have been victims of the two suspects to step forward.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_...to-work-in-marijuana-fields-say-calif-police/

 

[mysteriew]

This is concerns me.......
There are alot of kids classified as runaways and never given another thought. If there are others, I pray there alive to come forward...

Snipped......................................

Police reportedly said the victim is now in a safe place and there is some indication that there may be other victims. Authorities urge those that might have been victims of the two suspects to step forward.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_...to-work-in-marijuana-fields-say-calif-police/

When I read that it made me wonder if they looked around the property. I mean if there were others, why would anyone think they had let them go?

 

[mysteriew]

Feds: Pot farmers kept rape victim in box

A 15-year-old kidnap victim was held in a metal toolbox fitted with breathing holes by two Lake County marijuana growers, who sexually assaulted the girl and forced her to trim their plants, federal prosecutors allege.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, one of the men, 30-year-old Ryan Alan Balletto, kidnapped the girl from Los Angeles sometime before late April. He allegedly took her to his rural property near Clear Lake, where he kept an arsenal of weapons and a collection of sexual bondage gear.

The girl told a federal investigator that Balletto and Patrick Steven Pearmain, 24, twice put her in a 4-foot-long, 2-foot-wide and 2-foot-tall box for a total of three days. The girl said Balletto called her a "trouper" because she didn't scream, records show

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Feds-Pot-farmers-kept-rape-victim-in-box-4687701.php

From the link:

Federal investigators had been preparing to raid Balletto's property for months when, on April 29, Los Angeles police told Lake County sheriff's deputies that they suspected the girl was being held against her will on Balletto's property.

The girl called police the next day and told them she was OK and "with someone named Ryan," wrote Andrew Jensen, a U.S. Homeland Security agent assigned to contraband smuggling, in a court affidavit. Police traced the cell phone to a West Sacramento hotel room, where the girl and Pearmain were found, Jensen said

This part doesn't make sense to me. They have been preparing for "months" to raid the operation. Yet they get a call telling them the girl is there, and the very next day the girl calls them? How did she (or actually how did they) know to call them at that time?

 

[time]

Really horrible bizarre story and luckily this girl has been rescued.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-girl-captive-pot-20130727,0,2687030.story

When authorities raided the marijuana growing operation, they found greenhouses filled with plants over 6 feet tall, neatly lined with individual irrigation systems. But the rest of the property, one federal agent recalled, looked like a horror scene.

They found dilapidated trailers where farmers appeared to live, caches of weapons and a bloody towel.

....It was here, in a remote area east of Clear Lake in Northern California, that authorities allege a kidnapped teenage girl from Los Angeles County was sexually abused and occasionally held captive in a metal box. The box — about 4-by-2-by-2 feet — sat outside one of the trailers, with holes drilled through the lid and a blanket inside.

...The suspects — Ryan Alan Balletto, 30, and Patrick Steven Pearmain, 25 — face numerous felony charges. The Los Angeles Police Department arrested a third man, Eric Edgar, on suspicion of sexual assault. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had been investigating the 680-acre property owned by Balletto since December 2011, court documents showed.

The girl was reported missing April 2 from a San Fernando Valley home, according to the LAPD. Cmdr. Andy Smith said detectives believe she was living on the streets of Hollywood when she came in contact with Balletto.
A few weeks later, LAPD detectives received a tip that the girl was being held inside some kind of box at an undisclosed location in Northern California. The detectives eventually learned that she was in Lake County with Balletto and informed authorities there.

But before Lake County sheriff's officials could raid Balletto's property, they got a call from the girl, records show. She told them she was fine and staying with Balletto. A detective traced the call to the hotel, and authorities there found her in a room with Pearmain.

Authorities say they collected a bag full of marijuana, prescription drugs, condoms and a pregnancy test from the hotel room. Pearmain also had a notebook on him that had an apparent script for the girl to read to police over the phone, authorities say.

 

[time]

http://boingboing.net/2013/07/26/pot-growers-kidnap-15yo-girl.html

A police search of Balletto’s 680-acre pot grow in Lake County and a second property he owned in California turned up a gun safe containing "a ponytail of human hair," 17 guns, and thousands of dollars in cash.
The details listed in the federal complaint are so sad. Here's a summary in the LA Times account..

 

[CHERIE.T]

I read this last night on one of the rag type papers!
I was filled with horror when I read about this teenage girl!
Why do men --such as these-think it is ok to hold females hostage???
In a 4x2 box no less.
Im praying she recovers....
I agree with you all, are there others???
imo

 

[Filly]

The criminal complaint itself. Pretty much everything that's already been written.




http://documents.latimes.com/criminal-complaint-ryan-balletto/

The girl is referred to as missing as oppossed to a runaway.

What is up with the ponytail of human hair in the safe?

Five children playing around all those firearms?

Pearmin's FB shows him with a child. God help her.

 

[Sonya610]

Seems to me this girl voluntarily went with them for whatever reasons and it was all primarily consensual. First thing I thought of before reading the indictment was that she was 15 and they started worrying about her taking off and talking and that seems to be exactly what happened. Dumb men, they should have realized when they took her in that SHE had nothing to lose if she decided to talk but they had everything to lose.

 

[Filly]

Seems to me this girl voluntarily went with them for whatever reasons and it was all primarily consensual. First thing I thought of before reading the indictment was that she was 15 and they started worrying about her taking off and talking and that seems to be exactly what happened. Dumb men, they should have realized when they took her in that SHE had nothing to lose if she decided to talk but they had everything to lose.

She can't consent to jack **** as she is only 15 years old. No doubt she went with them voluntarily because apparently she was living on the streets. From this article it says she took off from "a home". IMO that means possibly a group home of some sorts.

They didn't "take her in". They repeatedly sexually assaulted her and locked her in a da** box for up to three days at a time while they put a hose through the box to wash out the human waste. Which no doubt they thought of her as human waste.

These two crumbs would be the first guys in the world to check on this kids age. Therefore NOT CONSENSUAL. The child states that. Apparently she said she had sex with the younger guy voluntarily, but not with the older one. Plus this article states a third guy was arrested on sexual assault charges alone.

Indeed they are dumb. They had a business to lose, and boat load of weapons. However she DID have alot to lose. Her life. The last bit of dignity she may have had. Her self worth. Her reproductive health. Her health alone. A shot at having a somewhat "normal" life where she could look forward to a decent future.

Seriously, what were they going to do with her? "Keep" her for the next twenty years?

 

[Filly]

Here's the other link




http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...l-box-horrifies-town-20130727,0,7333232.story

 

[Filly]

Balletto got 372 months on a menu of charges. Puzzling is the employment of a minor for illegal drug manufacturing. Haven't found out the the other perps charges yet. Surely locking a girl in a metal box and chaining her by the neck to a bed and couch has something to do with kidnapping?

 

[Filly]

Twelve and a half years for Pearmain in Federal Prison. That's scarry.

Time served for me if I don't figure out how to link on the device I'm typing from.

 

[oviedo]

Twelve and a half years for Pearmain in Federal Prison. That's scarry.

Time served for me if I don't figure out how to link on the device I'm typing from.

Lake County man sentenced to 31 years in sex abuse, illegal pot trafficking case – Lake County Record-Bee

snipped
SAN FRANCISCO — A Lake County man charged in 2013 for crimes related to sex with a minor, illegal marijuana operations and narcotics-related firearms possession was sentenced to 31 years in prison on Wednesday in federal court.

Ryan Alan Balletto was sentenced to 372 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to manufacture, possess with intent to distribute, and distribute marijuana; his possession of firearms in furtherance of narcotics trafficking; and his employment of a minor to violate drug laws, announced United States Attorney David L. Anderson and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge San Francisco and Northern California Ryan Spradlin on Wednesday. The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Charles R. Breyer, Senior United States District Judge.

Balletto, 36, of Lake County, pleaded guilty to the charges on Dec. 7, 2018. According to his plea agreement, Balletto admitted he worked with others to grow more than 1,300 plants of marijuana in 2013 in Lake County with the intention of selling the marijuana for profit. In connection with the marijuana-growing operation, Balletto coerced a female minor (then 15 years old) into working in the marijuana grow. Balletto initially met the 15-year-old victim in Los Angeles, and offered to let her live with his family in Northern California. Instead, he drove her to his rural marijuana cultivating site in Lake County and coerced her into helping with marijuana cultivation. In connection with this coercion, Balletto admitted to physically abusing the minor victim, including by forcibly confining her in a small, metal tool chest for an extended period of time, restraining her, and electrically shocking her. In addition, Balletto admitted to sexually abusing the minor victim by having non-consensual sex with her while requiring her to work on the marijuana grow.

.......
Balletto further admitted that, upon learning that the police were looking for the minor victim, a co-conspirator instructed her to call 9-1-1 and tell them that she was with friends and was “all right.”

.....
Balletto has been in custody since his arrests in May 2013 and will begin serving his prison term immediately.

Also charged in the August 1, 2013, indictment was Balletto’s co-defendant Patrick Stephen Pearmain, 31, also of Lake County. On Oct. 23, 2018, Pearmain pleaded guilty to employment of a minor to violate drug laws and conspiracy to manufacture, possess with intent to distribute, and distribute marijuana. On April 19, 2019, Judge Breyer sentenced Pearmain to serve 150 months in prison for his role in the scheme.