Monday, June 20, 2005

Today was Lucine Hagopyan’s trial.

The trial started at 1:45 and went on for 4 hours.

During the trial, three witnesses gave testimony, as well as an unexpected witness, who was without a doubt victimized by Lucine.

For the most part, Lucine denied everything that the witnesses claimed and presented herself as having done her victims a favor, but never brought them over to participate in the sex business.

Lucine and her attorney accused one of the witnesses as being the girls pimp and not her. This was clearly a lie and I would hope that witness pursues slander charges against her.

In the end, the prosecutor read a statement that Lucine herself had giving when she was first questioned by the prosecutor’s office which for the most part contradicted most everything she had stated under oath. Lucine admitted hat this was her initial statement which was in her handwriting and signed by her.

From everything presented, Lucine has to be charged under 132, which is the anti-trafficking law.

The court adjourned and will reconvene on July 8th at 14:00, at which time I expect that Lucine will be charged with trafficking and sentenced to 8 years.

The one thing I didn’t understand was that Lucine was not in custody and came to court with her mother Hasmik, who was also mentioned by one of the witnesses as being the one that recruited her and took her to the airport to send to Lucine.

If you ask me, the mother Hasmik needs to be arrested and charged with trafficking also. I mentioned this to the prosecutor, with Lucine’s defense attorney asking what I suggested? The prosecutor basically brushed the defense attorney off, saying that I was asking him an unrelated question.

We left the courthouse and walked in the same direction as Lucine and her mother Hasmik, who made their way down Prospect.

I asked a legal expert why Lucine was free and should she not be in custody? They answered that yes she should be in custody, but probably gave a nice big bribe to the authorities and for that reason she is walking the streets free.

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