Four black men have been arrested in connection with a brutal sex trafficking operation in Brooklyn after a 20-year-old woman bravely came forward after eight years as a sex slave

The victim was a vulnerable young girl who in 2003, at the age of 13, was raped by two men and forced to become a prostitute, officials said. The woman was beaten, stabbed and forced to sleep with homeless men when the proceeds she brought in weren’t perceived to be enough. Ringleader Damien Crooks has been charged with repeatedly raping and forcing into prostitution the then-teen. It began with Crooks raping the girl in a neighborhood park, followed by a non-stop campaign of terror for the next eight years while the girl lived with her parents. Prosecutors said Crooks had help. Darrell Dula, Jamali Brockett and his brother, Jawara Brockett, are also charged with raping the girl in addition to other crimes. Together, all are accused of making the girl afraid not only for her own life, but for the lives of her loved ones. So she kept it all secret, sneaking out of her parents’ house late at night. The turning point for the victim came as she was studying criminal justice at John Jay College. Her tormentors were threatening to recruit one of her close family members and she could not let that happen, so she went to her professor, Jeff Kern, a former prosecutor. The ordeal is not over. The victim’s immediate family members, who did not know the full story until recently, had to be relocated to a secret, safe place. Investigators suspect that there may be more young victims.