just what part of the constitution gives the feds the power to teenage prostitution???? last time i checked the constitution i couldnt find a word on this! Original Article FBI targets Toledo in teenage prostitution ringAssociated PressTOLEDO, Ohio - Federal authorities are focusing on teenage prostitution being exported from northwest Ohio but are at a loss to explain why the problem was found there, The Blade reported Sunday. Federal investigators in Washington last month charged 31 people with taking teenagers, including at least nine from the Toledo area, across state lines for prostitution. "We here in Toledo had no idea that this was going on," Dave Bauer, an assistant U.S. attorney in Toledo told The Blade in the first of a three-part series. Although the girls, some as young as 12, were recruited in Toledo they quickly were shuttled across the country and "would quite easily fly under our radar screens," Bauer said. The teens were rotated among motels, truck stops, and highway welcome centers, the newspaper said. Deb Hodges, administrator of Probation Services for Lucas County Juvenile Court, was another of those shocked by the discovery. "We had one of the federal investigators tell us that Toledo was the No. 1 recruiting spot in the United States," Hodges said. "It was mind-boggling." While federal officials have detailed the inner workings of the Toledo-based prostitution ring, they can't explain why a handful of local pimps became such big players on the national scene. "Everybody has been saying, 'Why Toledo? Why Toledo?' And we don't know why," said John Stossel, one of the FBI agents leading the investigation. The indictments, part of a child-prostitution crackdown called "Innocence Lost," spelled out the high level of organization among pimps who managed the business: setting prices, establishing work schedules, and negotiating turf. Gordon Zubrod, an assistant federal prosecutor in Harrisburg, Pa., called it a "loose confederacy" of pimps, each with his own turf but enough reason to get along. "It's to their benefit to cooperate," he said. The local network expanded two years ago, after a federal crackdown on another national sex-for-hire operation in Oklahoma City. "This opened the door," Zubrod said. The indictments tracked coast-to-coast wire transfers totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. The reasons for the girls entering prostitution are many, federal officials said. Some are kidnapped and forced into the sex trade by violence. Others find "prostitution is a continuation of the victim's sexual exploitation, not the beginning," FBI assistant director Chris Swecker said last month in Washington. Others leave home "for the thrill of it," stumbling into forced prostitution along the way, said Jim Anderson, a Toledo police missing-persons detectives. "They're 14, 15 years old. What do they really know at that age?" It was the "sophistication and the organization of the whole network" that stunned Mike Brennan, a longtime Lucas County juvenile probation officer. "I was blind-sided by the magnitude of it. When I got a call from a federal prosecutor, I was like, 'Yeah, yeah, it's probably some overzealous prosecutor,'" he said. http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=4334797 January 10, 2006 Toledo FBI Targets Toledo In Teenage Prostitution Ring Federal authorities say teenage prostitutes are being exported from northwestOhio. The Toledo Blade reports that federal investigators in Washington last month charged 31 people with taking teenagers, including at least nine from the Toledo area. Although the girls -- some as young as 12 -- were recruited in Toledo they quickly were shuttled across the country. The teens were rotated among motels, truck stops and highway welcome centers. Federal officials say they can't explain why a handful of Toledo pimps have became such big players on the national scene.