"Lisa" never thought she would be selling herself for money.
The Atlantic City High School senior had been rescued from herprostitute mother and drug-addicted father when she was just 5years old.
Taking her from a troubled life in Atlantic City, the Toms Rivercouple who adopted her were aware of their new daughter's troubledpast and worked hard to make the girl happy and feel part of aloving family.
There were special dinner dates and regular manicures, familytrips to places such as Disney World and Aruba.
At 16, nightmares began to haunt Lisa, dredging up the childhoodsexual abuse she had suffered and making her want to hurt othersthe way she was hurting. Still, her parents included her in a tripto Mexico.
But a year later, after running away from three programs meantto help her, she found herself in an Atlantic City casino hotelroom trying to explain to an older man that the sex her pimp hadpromised was not something she wanted to do.
Lisa's story is common in Atlantic City.
The FBI says Lisa and the other females in this story are thevictims of sexual crimes and as such are not identified in criminalcomplaints. Accordingly, The Press is not identifying the women inthis article with their actual names.
Caught somewhere between the casinos' allure and impoverishedneighborhoods lies a secret Atlantic City, where girls such as Lisaare used as a product for those who provide a different kind ofentertainment. One in which sex with underage girls is a bigbusiness. Girls ages 12 and 13 " some from the southern New Jerseyarea, others from other states " have been found being sold forsex.
That business is spurred by demand, said DawneLomangino-DiMauro, co-chair of the Anti-Trafficking Task Force ofAtlantic County, a county-formed board that provides help tohuman-trafficking victims.
People often connect "human trafficking" to foreign-bornvictims, said Alex Sinari, a founding member of ATTAC. But themajority are underage Americans, he said. Often, they are teenagegirls forced into the life of selling their bodies mostly tobenefit someone else.
Unlike drugs, "you can sell a person over and over and overagain," said Sinari, who does outreach for Atlantic City's CovenantHouse. "Some are sold 30 times in a day. Raped 30 times a day."
The most recent state Uniform Crime Report numbers show 16juveniles were arrested for prostitution or commercialized vice in2009, down 50 percent from the year before. Atlantic County had sixin 2008 and five in 2009.
But those numbers are not complete: Girls sold into prostitutionare considered victims, so they don't appear in arreststatistics.
"That wasn't even touching on the children who are brought infrom another state, who are not street-level prostitutes,"Lomangino-DiMauro said, referring to minors brought across statelines who are then sold into sex uses by other means, such asonline advertisements. "The numbers are just astounding when youthink about it like that."
In Atlantic City, there has been one pimp arrest since thebeginning of this year and two outstanding cases from last year,police records show. Often, however, it is the women on the street,and not the pimp selling them, who are picked up and arrested.
Teen prostitution in Atlantic City is the subject of a study byJohn Jay College in New York, Lomangino-DiMauro said. Researchersinterviewed both prostitutes and pimps and conducted a census ofunderage teenaged prostitutes working Atlantic City's streets.College officials confirmed the study but said the report was notready for publication.
Within 48 hours of a child taking to the street, she will beapproached by a pimp or exploiter, Sinari said of his experienceworking with trafficking victims. "It's just staggering howprevalent this problem is."
How they get there varies.
"There are all different types," Lomangino-DiMauro said. "Someare runaways who have been lured, some of them are involved indrugs, some are just on the street and have nowhere to go. Some ofthem have been kidnapped."
The street isn't even where police find the majority of thegirls these days, Atlantic City police Sgt. Rodney Ruark said.Pacific Avenue has been replaced by websites such as Craigslist andBackpage.
"There are a few other small escort service websites out there,"Ruark said of online investigations. "We don't see them walkingaround too much in the casinos."
'My first meltdown'
This wasn't where Lisa saw herself three years earlier, when shewas a successful athlete at Toms River High School South. But at16, things changed when the demons that haunted her from her firstfive years of life started to show.
"That's when I had my first meltdown," Lisa said.
She was diagnosed as bipolar with borderline personality andattention-deficit hyperactivity disorders.
Lisa's adoptive mom put her in a hospital and almost lost herjob because she wanted to be there for her daughter. About a yearlater, Lisa was put in her first program to get her some help. Sheran away.
Two more programs " and two more runaways " later, she wound upat the Covenant House, a place for runaway teens that gets them thehelp they need. Lisa was getting counseling and taking hermedication. She was at Atlantic City High School, determined tograduate on time. She even found a close friend in 'Sienna,' whoalso was bipolar. Unlike the kids back in Toms River who used Lisato gain access to her backyard pool and the gifts she gave them,Sienna was a true friend.
Lisa was at the Covenant House one day when a girl she knew fromschool showed up. The girl said she was thinking of staying at thecenter and asked Lisa to help her move in. Lisa went to the girl'shouse and was shown an expensive pair of shoes. The girl asked ifLisa wanted to make money in the casinos, but Lisa knew what thatmeant and said she wasn't interested. Then, the other girls in thehouse wouldn't let her leave, she said.
Eventually, she sneaked out a back window and got back to theCovenant House.
But Lisa soon got in trouble there, too. During an argument withanother resident, she broke rules by making public a privatematter. The two-day suspension left her with no place to turn. So,she returned to the girl's home, saying she would work " but justfor one night and just dancing.
A few hours later, she was inside a casino hotel room with herbra off, dancing for an older man. The 25-year-old woman acting asher pimp was there.
The next man expected more.
"I'll make this quick and painless," he told her.
But as the man tried to have sex with her, Lisa couldn't hideher distress.
"I really don't want to do this," the teen said. Then she beganto cry.
Difficulty finding help
Now 18, Lisa still doesn't know why she didn't say anything tothe security guard she passed downstairs as she walked the casinofloor. At 15, her adoptive mother had shown her a video on humantrafficking. When the girl in the video passed by someone who couldhelp her, Lisa wondered why the girl didn't call out. Looking backon her own chance to ask for help, Lisa said she thinks she figuredno one would believe her.
That was true when she told them about Sienna.
The day after Lisa worked in the casino, she was able to get hercell phone back from the woman she had worked for and quicklytexted a friend and asked her to come get her. But when "Sienna"showed up, the focus for bringing in a new working girl fell onSienna, an Atlantic City High School senior.
Lisa didn't know Sienna ended up going with the woman. Aftergetting picked up by someone else, Lisa got a call from Siennasaying she was with her boyfriend and was going to New York to workand shop.
"Don't go," Lisa told her. "There's trouble there."
It was the last Lisa heard from Sienna. Lisa called Sienna'scell number daily for a month " getting no answer " and told anyonewho would listen that her friend was in trouble.
"She was strong about graduating," Lisa said. "I had a gutfeeling that they had her. It was frustrating because I knew shewas out there and no one wanted to hear me."
But Sinari did, and so did the Covenant House's lawyer.
In March, the FBI found Sienna working in a casino. She hadnever gone to New York. The woman she was working for made her tellLisa that story, then took her phone, Lisa was told.
"I was so emotional when they found her," she said. "I thoughtshe was already dead, to be honest."
Now, Sienna is out of the area and in counseling both for heremotional scars and her addiction 
The misconception, Sinari said, is that these girls " even thosenot at the age of consent " are willing participants. Even theysometimes give that idea.
"(Expletive) you, I'm here doing this because I want to," Sinarioften is greeted with when he first meets a prostituted teen."That's the survival instinct."
"They are not child prostitutes," Lomangino-DiMauro said. "Theyare prostituted children. They are commercially, sexually exploitedchildren."
The sex-charged youth culture doesn't help, Sinari said.
Children, not products
"The word pimp has become a superlative in our society," hesaid. "It's a sordid world. You really have to be aware of whatyour kid is doing out there."
One Pleasantville father recently learned that lesson.
"Jennifer" left home one Friday night in February, telling herfather she was staying at a friend's house. Hours later, OfficerDaniel Corcoran found out what the 13-year-old girl was reallydoing when she propositioned the undercover Atlantic City policeofficer at a casino.
"It was very heartbreaking," said Ruark, the Atlantic Citypolice sergeant. "She seemed like she had a good head on hershoulders. She wasn't a drug addict or anything."
Her father had no idea where she was, Ruark said.
When Corcoran delivered the news " and the daughter back home "the father "was very upset ... he was crying," Ruark said.
It is unclear why the girl was there or how she gotinvolved.
"I wouldn't think that's something a 13-year-old would come upwith on her own," Ruark said.
But after all he's seen, Sinari isn't surprised by anythinganymore.
"It just changes the way you look at things when you roll downthe street," he said during a recent car ride through AtlanticCity.
He points to the sign advertising a spa: "When the front door isin an alley, you pretty much know there's sex offered."
And there are too many willing customers, Lomangino-DiMaurosaid.
"When there's a demand, unfortunately, the traffickers consider(the girls) a product," she said. "What society needs to rememberis, these are children, not products. To stop the traffickers, youneed to stop the demand."
Getting the girls help is another hurdle.
"Some of the children go back to their traffickers because wedon't necessarily have the funding or the resources to get them offthe street right away," Lomangino-DiMauro said. "We do have a groupof volunteers who try to assess and work to get them in the rightplaces."
Lisa, who once wanted to work in fashion, now sees her callingin law enforcement, helping those like herself.
"I didn't like the law when I was younger because they wouldalways take my biological parents away," she said.
But she knows her mix of street smarts and luck has served herwell, and she's hoping to help others like her.
"I don't know how my luck hasn't run out yet," she said.
But Sinari doesn't think it's luck that saved Lisa time andagain.
He sees an inner strength in the girl who has a vulnerability inher dark eyes that belies the tough talk and matter-of-factexterior. The same determination that helped authorities locate herfriend.
"I think it's a character thing," Sinari said. "I've seen it gothe other way. We've buried people who didn't make thatchoice."
Contact Lynda Cohen:
LCohen@pressofac.com
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