Driver For Prostitution Ring Had 100s Of Clients In Brewster: FBI

BREWSTER, NY — Federal prosecutors say Brewster was a lucrative destination for a prostitution ring based in Queens.

A criminal complaint filed Wednesday in federal court against Teodoro Rojas Lopez alleged he had 383 contacts for clients in the Brewster area. Rojas Lopez, also known as "Leonardo Martinez," spent seven years as a driver for a prostitution ring specializing in Mexican and Latin American women, prosecutors alleged.

The FBI has been investigating the sex trafficking activities of a group in Queens since 2016, according to the criminal complaint. They spent a lot of time in Brewster watching Rojas Lopez work, most often driving a 2006 Mazda van bearing Illinois registration.

In addition to transporting the women, the drivers, including Rojas Lopez, acted as facilitators, using cellphones to communicate by text messages and WhatsApp messages with prospective clients, deal with payment, and arrange the delivery of women to the clients’ locations. All the conversations were in Spanish.

He had been arrested in 2018 in Putnam County with two women and drugs in his car, prosecutors said. He admitted to the police officers that he had driven the two women to 12 prostitution appointments that day, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty in Carmel town court to the misdemeanor drug complaint and was sentenced to 179 days in custody, according to the criminal complaint. When he got out, he resumed driving for the prostitution ring, prosecutors alleged.

Rojas Lopez faces a charge of using a cellphone to promote prostitution.