SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — 60-year-old Leon Siess of Sioux Falls is in the Minnehaha County Jail Thursday night, accused of rape, sexual contact with a child and human trafficking. He is held on a $100,000 cash-only bond; court documents say he committed the crimes between 2009 and 2022 and began when the victim was 10 years old. Sioux Falls Police Department spokesperson Sam Clemens says it appears that multiple people sexually assaulted the young victim.
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“So as part of the investigation, we learned that the suspect took the victim out of state, and then there was some sexual contact that happened with other people as well,” Clemens said.
Clemens says the alleged victim in this case is safe and communicating with law enforcement.
“We will get some different reports about possible human trafficking, but to have a charge with human trafficking, that’s pretty rare,” Clemens said. “Sometimes it may be involved with pimping or prostitution. Obviously that’s not the case in this instance.”
“Human trafficking is happening here within our communities,” said Becky Rasmussen, president and CEO of Call to Freedom, which supports people impacted by human trafficking. “It is our obligation as a community to get educated, to better identify victims when they’re vulnerable in these situations.”
Rasmussen says movies depicting trafficking are one thing, but reality is another matter. She says different people have an opportunity to help prevent these horrors from happening.
“That individual trusts that other person,” Rasmussen said about the Siess case. “They were introduced to this lifestyle by somebody they trusted. They’re not going to self-identify as a human trafficking victim. It takes our systems and those that are in medical communities, law enforcement, within child protection services to really be trained to better identify these cases.”
