MINNEAPOLIS — When the girl now identified as Jane Doe 2 came under their control in 2006, at age 12, the Somali Outlaws and the Somali Mafia gangs set a firm rule: Their members could have sex with her for nothing; others had to pay with money or drugs.

Mr. Jibreel, the former teacher, said he had heard other examples of teenage girls who ended up as sex slaves. He said he had recently helped one girl who ran off at 12 and turned to prostitution and drugs under the aegis of gangs. She had a baby at 16 who was taken away by child protective services and continued her underworld life — under threat of death if she tried to leave it — until she recently gave birth to a second child whom she is determined to keep.

In a community that shies away from public discussion of sex and crime, some religious leaders and social workers have tried in the past to warn about the perils facing Somali youths.

“I see these indictments as a wake-up call for parents,” said Hassan Mohamud, a lawyer and imam of the Da’wah Islamic center in St. Paul.

Imam Mohamud visits Somalis in prison, trying to lure them to the fold, and his mosque offers after-school Koran classes to scores of young people, but he added that the community needed money for things like soccer coaches as well as stronger religious training.

One former gang leader he helped is Abdulkadir Sheriff, 31, whose tale, though many details cannot be independently confirmed, seems to encapsulate the strains and temptations of many Somali youths.

Mr. Sheriff said he fled Somalia for Kenya after seeing two sisters raped and murdered. He ended up in Minneapolis in 1996 with a sister and her husband, at the age of 17. They moved into the forbidding towers of Riverside Plaza, and he was kicked out of high school within a month after getting into fights. (To this day, he cannot read or write.)

Mr. Sheriff said he helped form Somali gangs for protection and self-esteem. “The only way to survive is to be somebody,” he said. He admitted carrying guns and selling drugs, spent a year in prison for car theft and beat a murder rap, but he insists that he was not involved in prostitution.

In 2007, as Mr. Sheriff emerged from a bar near the apartment towers, a rival stabbed him in the neck and left him for dead. His recovery, he said, “was a sign from God,” and his conversion was cemented by a visit from Imam Mohamud. Now Mr. Sheriff, who speaks with a raspy voice because of damage to his vocal cords, works as security chief at the Da’wah center and leads an Islamic 12-step program to help others stop drinking.

When he sees his surgical scars in the mirror, Mr. Sheriff said, “This reminds me that I’ve got a second chance.”

“There won’t be another one,” he said.

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NY Times

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