Woman arrested outside courtroom when testimony begins to implicate her
BY DAVID HARPER World Staff Writer
Friday, April 27, 2012
4/27/12 at 5:08 AM
A woman who is suspected of being a leader of an international sex-trafficking venture was arrested Thursday in a Tulsa federal courthouse hallway after attending her husband's detention hearing in the same investigation.
Gloria N. "Diana" Giammalva, 51, was sitting in a courtroom gallery in the Page Belcher Federal Building, 333 W. Fourth St., listening to testimony in the case involving her husband, Juan Rosales Garza.
Garza, 40, is one of six people who have been charged in Tulsa with engaging in a conspiracy that involved the recruitment, enticement and transportation of women for the purpose of engaging in prostitution.
As the testimony of Garrett Hendrickson, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, began to implicate her, Giammalva stepped into the hallway, where she was arrested and handcuffed as she burst into tears.
Later in the day, she was brought back to the same courtroom - this time as a defendant in a freshly drafted federal charge of engaging in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion and with causing others to travel across state lines to engage in prostitution.
An accompanying affidavit says the couple - along with Piedad Currea-Garcia, 50 - were the "leaders/organizers" of a sex-trafficking venture in which "male illegal aliens" acted as "caretakers" who maintained apartments and houses to be used as brothels.
Three men who claimed to occupy such roles have pleaded guilty in federal court in Tulsa, claiming that they were following the instructions of others who received the profits.
Search warrants have been executed in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, according to the affidavit.
Besides Oklahoma, the conspiracy involved activity in Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri and Florida, according to the most recent indictment in the case.
All of the known victims are from Mexico or Central America, Assistant U.S. Attorney Trent Shores said.
U.S. Magistrate Lane Wilson, after Giammalva was arrested outside the courtroom he was using, recessed Garza's detention hearing until next week.
It will be held in conjunction with Giammalva's hearing on the same issue.
Original Print Headline: Woman arrested outside courtroom
David Harper 918-581-8359
david.harper@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
Gloria N. "Diana" Giammalva: As a federal agent's testimony at her husband's hearing began to implicate her, she left the courtroom but was arrested in the hallway, where she was handcuffed as she broke into tears. She later was brought back as a defendant
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