XPost: alt.gossip.celebrities, alt.politics.democrats.d, sac.general   
   XPost: alt.rush-limbaugh   
   From: losers@dnc.org   
      
   TAMPICO, Mexico — A music producer accused of sexually abusing a   
   young singer in Mexico — whom he represented and mentored for   
   several years — has been found guilty of rape and human   
   trafficking.   
      
   Mario Enrique Miranda Palacios, 47, heard the verdict against   
   him on Monday after a six-week trial in Tampico, a coastal city   
   in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. He had pleaded not guilty.   
      
   Prosecutors had accused Miranda of taking advantage of his   
   position and power to push singer Luis Armando Campos — then a   
   minor — into sexual acts against his will. When they started   
   working together, the producer was 37 years old and the singer   
   had just turned 14.   
      
   Miranda was initially charged with rape, corruption of minors   
   and forced prostitution. But the Tamaulipas State’s Attorney’s   
   Office elevated the charges to include the more serious crime of   
   human trafficking. In a statement after the verdict, it said   
   that the prosecution had “irrefutably demonstrated the   
   responsibility of the now-convicted suspect.”   
      
   Campos, the victim, was in the courtroom when the verdict was   
   read, and said he was “satisfied” with the outcome.   
      
   “I feel satisfied. I always thought that we had the necessary   
   proof to demonstrate everything that happened,” he told CNN. “At   
   the moment the verdict was announced, I felt a mix of emotions:   
   I was nervous, but I was also desperate to find out what the   
   verdict would be. I was also at peace, because I knew that just   
   by speaking publicly, I had achieved something and had   
   demonstrated that everything I said was true,” added Campos, who   
   is now 23.   
      
   Miranda will appeal the ruling, according to his attorney Juan   
   Jorge Olvera Reyes, who had argued that the relationship was   
   consensual.   
      
   “What we were able to demonstrate during the trial is that   
   during the years in question there was a romantic relationship.   
   This relationship involved trips, explicit letters and other   
   proof that we showed during the trial,” Olvera said in a   
   statement.   
      
   Olvera also questioned whether the verdict was based solely on   
   facts presented in the trial. “Sometimes you wonder how deeply   
   this kind of decision is influenced by public opinion and   
   pressure from higher authorities. Verdicts sometimes do not   
   respond to facts presented during the trial, but to public   
   opinion,” he said.   
      
   Miranda now faces a sentence of between 30 and 63 years in   
   prison.   
      
   “He destroyed my adolescence”   
   The case first made headlines in Mexico after Miranda’s arrest   
   in March 2018.   
      
   Campos had gained some fame after reaching the semifinals in the   
   “The Voice Mexico” in 2014. It was during that singing contest   
   that Campos met Yuridia Valenzuela Canseco, the widely known   
   singer in Latin America known simply as “Yuri.”   
      
   Campos said that Yuri who convinced him that he should report   
   the abuse to authorities. Up until then, he had kept his ordeal   
   a secret.   
      
   “He destroyed my adolescence,” Campos recently told CNN,   
   referring to Miranda.   
      
   Rita Hernández, a board member of United vs Human Trafficking, a   
   nonprofit devoted to protecting victims of human trafficking,   
   says her organization provided legal assistance and counseling   
   to Campos was a vulnerable and young victim, she says, that came   
   from “a broken family.”   
      
   Campos, then in junior high school, had little money and was no   
   longer living with his parents when he first met Mario Enrique   
   Miranda Palacios, a music producer and talent promoter who   
   offered financial support and help promoting his career.   
      
   “This man came out of nowhere, promising an incredible singing   
   career. He does have a beautiful voice. He [Miranda] started   
   involving him in his own productions,” Hernández said.   
      
   ‘Vulnerable to abuse’   
   Campos also says his situation was desperate.   
      
   “By the time my mother made the decision to leave (to find work   
   in a different state in order to support the family), he offered   
   to help me and told her that he was going to take care of me   
   because he saw me as a son,” Campos told CNN.   
      
   At first, Miranda kept his promises, cultivating the 14-year-   
   old’s talent and polishing his singing voice.   
      
   “Even when the mother moved out of state, Armando stayed behind   
   because the mother was so trusting of this man that was   
   promising him this incredible career and for them, being so   
   poor, his talent was his ticket out of poverty,” Hernández said.   
      
   Campos says things quickly started to change. When he was still   
   14, Miranda once asked him to show up early for a rehearsal,   
   Campos says.   
      
   “He took me into his office, and it was there where, for the   
   first time, he asked me to take off my shoes and my socks and   
   kissed my feet. He said it was something normal and that he was   
   giving a scholarship at this academy and that I could thank him   
   this way, that it wasn’t something bad, that he was not going to   
   tell anybody and that this was normal,” Campos said.   
      
   ‘Forced into prostitution’   
   What started with verbal and sexual abuse soon worsened to   
   forced prostitution, the singer said. The fact that he didn’t   
   have his parents around him or any other adult that would’ve   
   protected him only made him more vulnerable to abuse.   
      
   “I didn’t have anybody I could tell these things to. I didn’t   
   have anybody to turn to,” Campos said.   
      
   At the time, Miranda was one of the most influential music   
   producers and promoters in Mexico and had gained a reputation as   
   a star maker. From this position of authority, it was easy to   
   attract young, vulnerable victims like Campos, Hernández said.   
      
   “He was a teenager. He was a child. A child doesn’t have the   
   mechanisms to protect themselves from violence or protect   
   themselves from abuse,” Hernández said.   
      
   Campos says Miranda coerced him to work as a sex slave for four   
   years starting at the age of 14. He says Miranda would get phone   
   calls from strangers, most of whom were interested in young   
   males. Miranda kept all the money and Campos only had his room   
   and board expenses covered.   
      
   Threats of harm to his family, deception by Miranda and   
   psychological abuse, he says, kept him quiet and submissive.   
   Campos says he finally found the courage to ignore the threats   
   and flee after turning 18.   
      
   “I think it was anger held inside of me. It was the need to feel   
   peace and calm. I was fed up of the screaming and the threats   
   and that was what gradually built up that anger inside of me,”   
   Campos said.   
      
   Miranda has long denied the accusations and argued that the   
   relationship was consensual.   
      
   ‘Activist’   
   In addition to his singing career, nowadays Campos is also an   
   activist who talks openly about what he says he went through.   
      
   “As I tell my story to people, I feel like I’m getting free   
   again. It’s like a therapy that helps me a lot,” Campos said.   
   “And, well, telling my story to people who have recently gone   
   through this, so they can see I’m moving forward also makes me   
   feel good,”   
      
   The singer recently spoke at an event in front of members of the   
      
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