Honduras Braces for Landmark Verdict in Angie Peña Sex-Trafficking Case

Family members, legal advocates, and women’s rights organizations in Honduras called for justice Monday while awaiting a court verdict in a sex-trafficking case tied to Angie Peña’s 2022 disappearance. Supporters say the case has laid bare the impunity and corruption fueling widespread gender-based violence across the Central American nation.

Four men stand trial in connection with Peña’s disappearance, with a Honduran court scheduled to deliver its verdict on Monday.

U.S. citizens Harold Green and William James Murdock face human trafficking charges, while American Gary Lee Johnston and Honduran national Gustavo Trejo are accused of criminal association.

The case has implicated government officials and uncovered a criminal network known as “Delta Teams,” drawing comparisons to the Jeffrey Epstein network in a country marked by high gender-violence rates and low conviction numbers for related offenses.

Attorneys representing the victims’ family have criticized the opaque nature of the investigation and trial, which was closed to the press and public. Peña’s relatives say they have received death threats, while the August killing of Dereck McNeil—a protected witness—underscored the risks of pursuing justice in Honduras.

“Many more women and girls have fallen victim to trafficking networks, yet those cases are silenced and go unpunished,” said Kenia Paz, an attorney with the Legal Team for Human Rights representing Peña’s family.

Paz said the case has revealed a criminal network “beyond what we can even imagine” and urged the state to answer for what happened to Peña.

Peña, 22, vanished on January 1, 2022, after riding a Jet Ski while vacationing with family in Roatán, an island off Honduras’s coast. Authorities initially treated her disappearance as a possible accident, but the investigation shifted to human trafficking after the Jet Ski was discovered in Belize, roughly 90 nautical miles (170 kilometers) away.

In August 2022, investigators searching Johnston’s Roatán home in connection with Peña’s disappearance found a minor on the premises. Johnston was later sentenced to 32 years for commercial sex trafficking and child pornography in a case separate from the proceedings involving Peña.

In April 2024, authorities issued arrest warrants for four additional individuals, including Green, Murdock, and Trejo. Honduran officials have also requested an Interpol notice for the fourth suspect, U.S. citizen Antony Frank Grayson.

The Honduran public prosecutor’s office alleges the suspects belong to a sex-trafficking network that included minors and was also involved in drug trafficking. The office claims police and at least one judge facilitated the network, though it has not named the officials involved.

Defense attorneys have denied their clients’ involvement and requested acquittal. McNeil, the slain protected witness, alleged additional corruption within the public prosecutor’s special unit, ATIC. In videos released after his death, he accused the unit of leaking case information and having ties to drug-trafficking networks. The ATIC director has denied corruption allegations and stated the unit was not involved in investigating Peña’s disappearance.

Julissa Villanueva, a former vice minister of security involved in the investigation, said prosecutors have mishandled the case from the outset. She argued they promoted a “tunnel vision” narrative that obscures the larger criminal structure, which she compared to Epstein’s sex-trafficking network.

A Honduran media analysis found that the country appears more than 100 times in the Epstein files, with multiple references to Roatán.

Villanueva called for justice in the case.

“There are connections with other larger networks, and only by exposing them will this family obtain justice,” she said. “It’s not just Angie. It’s all the women around Angie. There are many.”

The verdict is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. local time in Honduras (19:30 GMT).

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