Leader of Princeton forced labor ring had 15 women sleeping on floor while paying off their 'debt:' police

PRINCETON, Texas - Investigators with the U. S. Department of Homeland Security are now investigating an alleged forced labor ring in Collin County.

Police in Princeton, east of McKinney, say several women were forced to sleep on floors in a rented home, and they have evidence that the scheme may be far-reaching, involving upwards of 100 people.

The lawyer for one of the four suspects denies his client's involvement in ‘human trafficking.’ 

In a press release, the Princeton Police Department says the women were "forced" to work for the suspect and multiple "programming shell companies." 

The attorney for the alleged leader of the operation, however, argues the arrest affidavit does not provide evidence of force.

Attorney Jeremy Rosenthal is stating the case of his client, Santhosh Katkoori, an accused leader of a human labor trafficking operation in Princeton and other areas of North Texas. 

"It doesn’t sound like human trafficking," he said. "I haven’t seen any evidence of it."

Katkoori is one of four people charged by the Princeton Police Department. Investigators say 15 women were found inside his rental home in March. Police just released details this week. 

According to an arrest affidavit, a pest control employee came to treat bed bugs. The technician told police that once inside, he saw "3-5 young females sleeping on the floors" of each room and that "the only furniture was folding tables and one air mattress."

"He wasn’t arrested for bad living conditions. He wasn’t arrested for being mean to people," Rosenthal said. "He was arrested for human trafficking. I have not seen any evidence of that."

Rosenthal would not answer how Katkoori came to know the women or what they were doing. 

Princeton police also did not answer those questions from FOX 4.

"Human trafficking has elements of coercion, force, manipulation. None of the documents I’ve seen or read really lists anything like that," said Rosenthal.

According to the affidavit, the women told police that "Katkoori would assist them in creating their resumes and [was] teaching them ‘Java scripting.’ Once they were able to obtain a job, the job would then pay Katkoori… approximately 20 percent. This would occur until the ‘debt’ was repaid." 

The affidavit did not explain what the debt was for.

On Monday, Princeton police told FOX 4 there was no evidence of violence against the women, but they maintain this is human labor trafficking and say more victims are being identified and more arrests will be coming.

There’s also a federal investigation.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security tells FOX 4 it seized phones and property that are still being evaluated. Based on what they find, there could be additional federal charges. 

Alex Del Carmen, associate dean of criminology at Tarleton State University, says he would be shocked if serious elements highlighting human trafficking do not come out over the course of the investigation.

"As far as what we don’t know, I think there’s a lot of it that we don’t know," he said. "There’s probably a great deal of information that intentionally has not been released to the public yet because either the entities, the law enforcement entities are engaging in an ongoing investigation. Or they’re still probably still gathering information."