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Victim takes stand in trafficking case
Co-defendant has been missing since indictment filed
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
The accuser in the David Kalna human-trafficking case was shaking as she was sworn in Monday.
Prosecutors said the accuser, now 18 and a relative of Kalna’s, was sold to co-defendant Alex Ramirez for sex to help feed Kalna’s drug habit.
Opening statements in the case began before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Kalna, 38, of Eleanor Avenue, faces charges of compelling prostitution and trafficking in persons.
The accuser said Kalna began selling her to Ramirez when she was 15, and the abuse continued until she was 16. Ramirez lived next door to Kalna on South Lakeview Avenue.
Ramirez has been missing since he and Kalna were indicted earlier this year.
The accuser was the first witness in the trial after opening statements. She said when she was first introduced to Ramirez and some other men who worked as roofers and lived next door to Kalna, she immediately got a bad vibe.
“Just the look on his face was kind of creepy,” she said. At first, Kalna would send her to see Ramirez to ask for money or cigarettes. It wasn’t until later, when Ramirez took her to a home on Ferndale Avenue after a dinner at a Boardman restaurant, that Ramirez sexually assaulted her, she said.
Ramirez later moved in with Kalna, and that is when the abuse got worse, from Ramirez forcing the accuser into sex acts, she testified. She said Ramirez would beat her as well.
Kalna made the accuser go places with Ramirez and see him for money, the accuser testified. She said Kalna would often threaten Ramirez that he would call the police on him for what he was doing, which prompted payments from Ramirez.
The abuse ended when the accuser was taken into custody by Mahoning County Children Services and she told a social worker about it, the accuser testified.
In his opening statement, defense attorney James Wise said there was no getting around that the case is “ugly,” but he said other family members will testify on behalf of Kalna.
“All of these people are going to tell a different story that doesn’t really fit the prosecution’s story,” Wise said.
Wise said his client did not need money because he had work as a roofer on a crew with Ramirez.