For Families Free of Violence contacted Richmond police detectives as well, police said.
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Police said that the woman was lured to California from her native Nicaragua through Facebook messages promising her a job and a better life in the United States.
Richmond police said they were alerted about the woman by a Homeland Security agent and by an advocacy group the woman had contacted.
A 35-year-old man and a male relative were arrested Tuesday in Richmond’s Iron Triangle neighborhood on suspicion of human trafficking and a host of other offenses after a woman was rescued from the man’s residence claiming to have to been held captive there for about a year.
Gabriel Garcia, a neighbor of the woman living in the closet, described what she saw to ABC7 News, explaining the man who allegedly imprisoned her was a painter who was married with a child.
On Monday, detectives went to Constantino-Sanchez’s home and found the woman, who police said was frightened. “But then, I think she moved out and then there was another girl I saw there”, Garcia said.
Eulogio Constantino-Sanchez is accused of holding a woman prisoner in a closet and using her as a sex slave.
Homeland Security said in a statement it is working closely with Richmond police investigators “in an ongoing probe into a possible case of forced servitude”.
Constantino-Sanchez was booked for kidnapping, rape, corporal injury, false imprisonment and conspiracy and was being held in custody at County Jail in Martinez as of Wednesday night.
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“Evidence at the residence confirmed all the information the detectives had obtained.”
