Forced Girl To Sell Body For Profit
A 33-year-old South Ozone Park man who admitted to being a sex trafficker and to forcing a female runaway under the age of 16 to perform sexual acts for pay at various locations in Queens has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars.
Queens DistrictAttorney Richard A. Brown identified the defendant as Michael Summerville, 33, of 128th Street in South Ozone Park, who has been held in jail in lieu of $250,000 bail since his arrest in December 2010. Summerville pled guilty last month to the crime of sex trafficking beforeActing Supreme Court Justice James P. Griffin, who imposed last Thursday, Apr. 19, the indeterminate sentence of five to 10 years in prison.
“Today’s sentence is more than justified and sends a clear message to others who traffic in vulnerable and troubled teenage girls, and use them as a commodity to be sold to others for cash, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Brown said in a statement last Thursday.
According to the criminal charges, Summerville befriended the then-14-year-old victim in January 2010 after she ran away from home. Engaging in sexual activity with her, Summerville eventually pimped her out until she managed to return home.
In October 2010, the victim, then age 15, ran away again and returned to Summerville’s Brooklyn home to retrieve a cell phone and computer that he had taken. She was then brought to his Queens home, where she stayed with him until approximately Oct. 31, 2010.
During that time, the criminal complaint noted that he engaged in sexual activities with her and had her engage in prostitution on a daily basis-along with other females- and forced her to give all of her earnings to him.
On Oct. 31, 2010, Summerville then turned the girl over to another pimp who had sex with her and forced her to engage in prostitution until she was eventually able to escape.
Summerville was summarily arrested in December 2010 following an undercover investigation by the NYPD’s Vice Enforcement Division based on information provided by the victim-the telephone number that Summerville used in his backpage.com ad.
On the night of Dec. 1, 2010, undercover officers went to Summerville’s residence and were met by four females, each of whom offered to have sexual intercourse with the officers in exchange for money.
The officers paid one of the females a total fee of $360 ($90 per girl) in pre-recorded buy money, which she then brought to a back room.
Shortly thereafter, the officers entered the back room where they observed Summerville and recovered the $360 in buy money from his pants pocket.
Brown noted that Summerville’s guilty plea is the fifth sex trafficking conviction obtained by his office since state legislation strengthening penalties against human trafficking and providing assistance to victims took effect on Nov. 1, 2007. The defendants in the four other cases are all serving state prison sentences ranging from two to six years to 25 years to life.
Assistant District Attorney Jessica L. Melton, of the District Attorney’s Special Proceedings Bureau, prosecuted the Summerville case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Anthony M. Communiello, bureau chief, and Assistant District Attorney Oscar W. Ruiz, deputy bureau chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter A. Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Linda M. Cantoni.
