Man apprehended with runaway juvenile; charged with rape, human trafficking
BATON ROUGE - Investigators with the Baton Rouge Police Department followed up on the whereabouts of a runaway juvenile out of Jefferson Parish and discovered the girl appeared to have been the victim of human trafficking at the hands of an alleged rapist.
According to a police document, on June 16, an officer with BRPD was dispatched to Homewood Suites on Corporate Boulevard where he discovered 37-year-old Emilio Joaquin Zavala Paguada and a young girl who told officers she'd been attacked.
Police say the youth spoke fluent Spanish but not English and used an interpreter to explain that Paguada told her he'd give her a cell phone if she accompanied him to Baton Rouge, so she went with him.
But, she went on to say, once they got to Baton Rouge, Paguada tried to have sex with her and when she refused he threatened that certain drug-dealing members of his family would hurt either her or her family.
The girl told police after Paguada raped her, she pretended to take a shower but secretly called her mother.
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Paguada was arrested on charges of second-degree rape and human trafficking.