Gay music producer found guilty of homosexually abusing a young male rising star in Mexico

[Liberalism In The News]

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
Mexican congress. “I feel wonderful. I had never been in this
building before,” he said after leaving one of the chambers.

Campos said he cried when he learned the man he claims abused
him and destroyed his adolescence had been finally put behind
bars. The guilty verdict, he said, makes him feel like he has
recovered part of the freedom he lost during the four years he
was in captivity.

“There were many people who accused of reporting Miranda because
I was corrupt and just wanted money. Only I who live through it
know exactly what happened. More than earthly justice, I believe
in divine justice and God knows how much I suffered,” Campos
said.

Miranda’s sentence is expected to be announced on September 3rd.

https://fox5sandiego.com/2019/08/16/music-producer-found-guilty-
of-sexually-abusing-a-young-rising-star-in-mexico/