00:00Well, first of all, talk about courageous.
00:03I want to thank Congresswoman Teresa Legere Fernandez from New Mexico for being here today.
00:12She has many duties because she heads the Women's Caucus on our side of the aisle,
00:16and that's almost 100 members now.
00:18After the next election, it'll be more.
00:21And so that means there'll be more power to you, everyone that has traveled here today.
00:26Thank you for your courage.
00:28Thank you for extending yourselves to the American people so that this can never happen again
00:34if we're successful in our efforts to any young woman in our country.
00:40I am not on the committees of jurisdiction that deal with this issue.
00:45I'm not on the Judiciary Committee and other committees.
00:47But for some reason, I learned about Virginia Giuffre.
00:52She did get a lot of publicity, and she was an extraordinarily brave woman.
00:58And I started reading her story on the Internet because it really wasn't reported here in our area.
01:04So even a member of Congress cannot know certain things going on.
01:11But as I got into her life and I saw that she had come to Ohio, to New Albany,
01:20I said to myself, why aren't there any stories about Ohio in the national news?
01:28Meanwhile, and as the files were only partially released and I saw what happened to many victims
01:39when they came to hear Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, be questioned by the Judiciary Committee
01:47and she wouldn't even turn around and look at the women that came to Washington at risk to their own
01:52lives.
01:53I was like, what?
01:56I couldn't believe it.
02:01So there came a time, the December 2025, just a week before Christmas,
02:10when an article appeared in the New York Times and the headline was
02:16Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons, the Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich.
02:24I couldn't put the story down.
02:26This was the, and I'm sure nobody in my district, a district of 780,000 people, has read this story.
02:34But Ohio is really important and it was the actual bank for Jeffrey Epstein.
02:44Why aren't there major stories?
02:45Why haven't major stories been done here?
02:48What is going on in our state?
02:50I know about the corruption of Ohio in other areas like nuclear energy, for example,
02:55and the bribery of our state legislature.
03:00I could say other things about what they've done and not done.
03:03But as I got through this, it was nagging me why there aren't investigations about Ohio
03:10and New Albany, Ohio.
03:13Then I read about Zorro Ranch, which I didn't know about.
03:17I hadn't heard of that.
03:18The FBI didn't investigate there either.
03:21And I started looking at who were some of the political figures in New Mexico
03:26that might have been suppressing that information.
03:29And I came across some names of people that I knew.
03:31I thought if anybody could be guilty of suppression, that is the person who should.
03:36But you're including the Democrats.
03:38And you were willing to, we're willing to, we need to call it all out,
03:41whether it's a Republican or a Democrat.
03:43The one I'm thinking of was a Democrat.
03:44Mm-hmm.
03:45And so I thought, why aren't there voices from Ohio?
03:49Then I thought of Senator Theresa Fetter here in our area,
03:53who single-handedly, alone, for four decades in the state legislature,
03:59tried to be a voice, and she'll talk about that in a second, for trafficking.
04:06And it was such a hard struggle.
04:09So hard.
04:10Why was it so hard in Ohio?
04:14So I'm saying this for our guests because even I, and I'm a well-read person usually,
04:21but even I was coming across things that didn't make any sense.
04:24I couldn't fit anything together.
04:26And then when I saw Virginia Jufre die, I think she was in Australia when that was, am I correct?
04:33Mm-hmm.
04:34I just, it, it appears to me in a way that I thought, in her memory, we're going to do
04:42something.
04:43And when I read this article, I thought, why aren't there stories in Ohio?
04:48Why?
04:48And I asked that question, and while we're discussing things today,
04:53I just want to say for those who are listening, and we want to thank C-SPAN for coming today,
04:57there is a national human trafficking hotline, and that number is 1-888-373-7888,
05:06but also regionally and nationally.
05:10There are other numbers that those who are victims, those who have information, can contact,
05:15and I want to give those numbers out.
05:18Polaris Project, P-O-L-A-R-I-S project.org, PolarisProject.org, and SharedHope.org.
05:27I was also informed by our guests today that if you have been a victim of trafficking,
05:32or if you know someone who was, who was willing to go with you, contact your local FBI office.
05:38Every congressional district has a FBI office.
05:42Don't go nationally, go locally.
05:45If you have concerns, if you have information, if you can drop a letter at a mail slot, do it.
05:51So I wanted to give those out, and we here in Toledo are aware of the trafficking that goes on,
06:00on our turnpike, and some of the offload ramps that go into traffic classes and so forth.
06:10So we have seen firsthand what is happening in this region, but nobody's ever put it together.
06:16And I just wanted to make sure that people understood that we are in a process of discovery,
06:21even here, learning ourselves and connecting the dots.
06:26There was an exhibit that just came to Columbus.
06:29I hope one of our guests will talk about that, because it came and it left.
06:35Nobody up here saw it, and I'm not sure it's even worth seeing, but maybe it is.
06:40But how we collect information to try to connect the dots to what might have happened
06:44and is happening right now in Ohio.
06:48I look forward to your statements, and I think that Senator Federer is the next individual
06:56to comment.
06:57Am I correct on that?
06:58Teresa, Fernando Fernandez is going to go over.
06:59Okay, then we can go over.
07:01Okay.
07:03Subscribe to One India and never miss an update.
07:08Download the One India app now.
07:12We'll see you next time.
