BK Man Who Sex Trafficked 16-Year-Old Gets 8 Year Sentence: DA

BROOKLYN, NY — An East Flatbush man who made a 16-year-old girl have sex with other men for money has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, according to prosecutors.

Jermaine Taylor, 37, was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty to attempted sex trafficking for the 10 months he forced the teen to have sex with men in Brooklyn and Queens in 2019, and then turn over the money to him, prosecutors said.

Taylor slapped, punched and threatened to kill the teenager when she told him she wanted to stop working as a prostitute and hit a pregnant woman who tried to rescue the girl with his car, prosecutors said.

“The facts of this case are horrific, and today’s sentence holds this defendant accountable for his violent sexual exploitation of a child and for heartlessly assaulting the brave woman who attempted to rescue her," said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. "Violent predators who seek to exploit vulnerable victims will find no sanctuary in Brooklyn, and my Office is committed to vigorously pursuing justice.”

Taylor — who pleaded guilty to second-degree sex trafficking and second-degree assault — was the first person in Brooklyn to be charged under a new sex trafficking of a child statute when he was arrested in 2019, prosecutors said.

He trafficked the 16-year-old girl multiple times between May 2018 and when she was rescued in March, prosecutors said.

At one point during those 10 months, a 28-year-old pregnant woman who knew the victim tried to rescue the girl when they both were in the car with Taylor. But before she could, Taylor pushed the pregnant woman out of the car, hit her with his vehicle and drive away, prosecutors said.

Taylor will be required to register as a sex offender when he is released from prison and will face five years of supervision, prosecutors said.The new law Taylor was charged under, which was put in place in New York State in November 2018, makes it so that prosecutors do not have to prove that force, fraud or coercion was used against underage victims, thus sparing them from testifying in many cases.