A South Ozone Park man was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison last week for being a sex trafficker and forcing a female runaway under the age of 16 to prostitute herself around Queens.
According to the Queens District Attorney, Michael Summerville, 33, of 135-50 128th St. in South Ozone Park, 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 which time 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 approximately Oct. 31, 2010, Summerville 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 arrested in December 2010 after 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 of buy money from his pants pocket.
Summerville, who has been held in jail in lieu of $250,000 bail since his arrest in December 2010, pleaded guilty last month to the crime of sex trafficking before acting Supreme Court Justice James P. Griffin, who imposed the sentence of five to 10 years in prison.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said, “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 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.