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• FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- Top federal prosecutors from North and South Dakota have added human trafficking to their list of crimes affecting Native Americans at an increased rate in the two states.
• U.S. attorneys Brendan Johnson of South Dakota and Timothy Purdon of North Dakota said during a conference on family violence Tuesday that both states are seeing more cases of girls and young women being recruited for prostitution and drug rings.
• Three new indictments for human trafficking have been handed down in South Dakota in the last three months, Johnson said.
• "You have people who treat their victims like they're not humans," Johnson said after talking to a group that included police, social workers, prosecutors, counselors and community leaders.
• The operations are formed mainly in populated areas, but American Indian girls are particularly at risk, the prosecutors said. Some of them were recruited by a Sioux Falls-area man who was convicted last year of sex trafficking of a child.
• "These young girls were brutalized. They were humiliated," Johnson said.
• Brandon Thompson, 28, of Tea, S.D., was sentenced to life in prison on the sex trafficking charge.
• "This is one area where the federal government has gotten it right," Johnson said of the penalty.
• A recent sex trafficking case in North Dakota involved several victims from the Fort Berthold Reservation. Dustin Morsette, 22, of New Town, was convicted of sex trafficking, sexual abuse, drug trafficking and witness tampering. He is awaiting sentencing.
• Authorities said Morsette recruited minors and young adults to be part of a gang he described as the Black Disciples. He allegedly forced gang members to distribute (Continued on page 17)
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