A man from Elco, Mickey Cupkie, has been charged with four felony counts of engaging in prostitution with a minor, 15 and 17. The two girls were forced into prostitution after being picked up in North Minneapolis by pimps. They were runaways and had no idea what they had gotten themselves into. The pimps raped them, held them against their will, and placed ads on Backpage to solicit child abusers, like Cupkie, to buy and rape them for cash. They have since been rescued and their pimps jailed.
Mickey Cupkie is a former First Lieutenant with the Minnesota Army National Guard who served tours in Iraq and Kuwait and now works for the US Army Corps of engineers of St. Paul. He was discharged from the Army National Guard in May, 2011.
Police and prosecutors believe he is the first man to be charged under the new Minnesota human trafficking law. They want to send a message to Johns and Pimps with these charges. "If you rape and sell our daughters, we will hunt you down and prosecute you."
They believe Cupkie was using his computer at work to solicit girls from Backpage, a notorious website for child sex trafficking and illegal prostitution activities. He left Ramsey county jail Thursday night with no comment, according too Fox 9 news www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/18852347/john-charged-with-sex-trafficking
Cupkie is a member of the Church of Ladder Day Saints and claims also to be a family man while also identifying himself to be a Boy Scout leader as well. Cupkie told the girls that they were too young to engage in prostitution but raped them anyway.
The police want to ask for the public's help in identifying child victims in the human sex trafficking trade. If you see a child on Backpage, on the street, at the bus stations, or in any place or situation that you think they shouldn't be, please don't hesitate to call 1-888-428-7581
Underage American girls, many of them runaways or throwaways, get caught up in forced prostitution in the United States. Child raping Johns like Cupkie now have a new problem to worry about when raping young girls for money, the law will not be on their side anymore in Minnesota.
