BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The wife of an Erie County Sheriff’s deputy appeared in City Court for a pre-trial conference related to prostitution charges.

30 year old Melissa Waliczek is free on her own recognisance after this morning’s appearance in Buffalo City Court. She appeared before Judge Amy Martoche who leads the Human Trafficking Intervention Court.

“These human trafficking events, they always go deeper that just the surface arrest and we could find more victims, we could find more people involved in this,” said Scott Zylka, a spokesman for the Erie County Sheriff’s Office.

Waliczek was arrested on August 16 in Lancaster, the town where she lives, but it was in the parking lot of Flix Theater on Transit and William where she was charged with prostitution. According to court papers, an undercover Lancaster Police detective responded to an ad that was posted on a common website used to advertise prostitution. He says he exchanged text messages with her and agreed to meet in that parking lot where she agreed to have sex for $150.

On September 11, three weeks after her arrest, her husband Wallace Waliczek was arrested for promoting prostitution. He is a longtime Erie County Sheriff’s Deputy in the Jail Division, who was suspended without pay on October 8th.

The Sheriff’s Office won’t give any further details of Wallace Waliczek’s arrest, but did elaborate on why the task force is involved in cases like this. “It’s not only sex trafficking but it’s labor, it’s anything that has to do with coercion. You’re manipulating somebody. You’re trying to keep them under control by possessing documents, withholding basic human needs, anything along those lines, so that’s what the Human Trafficking Task Force is.”

Melissa Waliczek is scheduled to be back in court next Tuesday. Wallace Waliczek is scheduled to be arraigned in Human Trafficking Intervention Court on November 12.