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Watch groups say door-to-door sales crews treated like indentured servants
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About three times a month, on average, traveling magazine sales crews commit crimes ranging from petty theft to homicide, according to a parent-organized watch group founded by a man whose daughter was killed during her stint with a sales team.
"In the last eight years, we've logged 280 high-profile cases," said Phil Ellenbecker, the watch group's founder.
His Web site, travelingsalescrews.info, keeps court records, corporate lineages, testimonials and a chronology of crimes attributed to or suffered by members of the traveling sales groups.
The latest additions to the list are two homicides in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights, though suspects Travis Rowley and Michael Lee have not been indicted, much less convicted, on the murder charges on which they were arrested.
The list, which Ellenbecker said is culled from media reports — including a lengthy New York Times investigation of the industry in February —along with first-person accounts, paints a picture of roving bands of bandits, murderers, rapists, kidnappers and swindlers.
Industry officials told the New York Times they don't condone violence or drug use and don't abuse their workers.
The stories persist, however, and especially vulnerable, Ellenbecker's list suggests, are female crew members, who have been assaulted or killed in secluded areas.
In December 2006, a 19-year-old crew member was found in the woods outside Memphis, Tenn. She was last seen selling subscriptions at a gas station in Arkansas, according to media reports and Ellenbecker's list.
That same month, a 27-year-old crew member was arrested and charged with dragging a 16-year-old boy into some bushes and attempting to rape him in Vista, Calif.
The two incidents were among dozens of homicides the list attributes to magazine sales crews and the lifestyle that accompanies them.
The list also details assaults, petty larceny arrests and crew members found with numerous outstanding warrants.
In New Mexico, the 2005 slaying of Benjamin Suazo outside a Santa Fe bowling alley is attributed to a traveling magazine sales team.
One of the crew members who is no longer facing charges in Suazo's death was recently charged with kidnapping a fellow crew member in California when the member tried to leave the crew, according to news reports.
That, Ellenbecker said, is another dirty detail of magazine sales crews, which he calls a type of indentured servitude.
Crew members earn about $20 a day, far less than is promised by their employers, Ellenbecker said.
When Rowley was booked into jail Saturday, he had $1.55 to his name, according to Metro Detention Center documents. Lee had none.
Without sufficient earnings, members who want to leave the crew are stuck without money for a bus ticket home, Ellenbecker said.
Another group, parentwatch.org, provides free bus tickets to any crew member who calls seeking help, Ellenbecker said.
"Some crews are better than others, but buying something from any of these groups promotes crime," Ellenbecker said. "The kids are exploited."
