Two Queens men have been charged in separate cases involving sex crimes, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown’s office announced on Thursday, April 19.
The two men charged are Christopher Whitfield, who lived on 113th Avenue in Queens Village and Fernando Del Rio, who lived on Smart Street in Flushing.
According to the district attorney, Whitfield, who is 24 years old, faces seven charges, including first-degree kidnapping, sex trafficking, second-degree promoting prostitution and second-degree assault.
Del Rio, 41, faces five charges, which include attempted use of a child in a sexual performance, second-degree attempted rape and second-degree attempted criminal sexual act.
If both are convicted of their crimes, Whitfield faces 25 years to life in prison while Del Rio could be sentenced to up to seven years in jail.
According to the charges, Whitfield encountered a 15-year-old girl who ran away from home. He told her, on March 8, that she would have sexual intercourse with men in exchange for money that would be paid to him. It is believed that Whitfield posted prostitution advertisements of the girl on the website backpage.com and between March 8 and April 1, several men responded to the ads. The young girl met the men who responded to the ad at hotels and other locations in Queens where she had sexual intercourse or oral sex with them for cash, which was given to Whitfield.
He also allegedly raped her twice and forced her to perform oral sex on him. It is also believed that Whitfield threatened to physically harm her after the girl asked to leave and stop participating in prostitution. On several occasions, Whitfield burned the young girl on the breast and wrist with cigarettes and a hot razor, which he also used on her leg. All of those alleged burnings resulted in scars and the young girl escaped when she was left alone.
In the Del Rio case, according to the charges, Del Rio was instant messaging an undercover NYPD detective from his America Online account. Del Rio’s messages were supposedly sexual in nature and he invited what he thought was a 14-year-old girl to meet him in Queens for sexual activity.
He was arrested on April 17 when he appeared at a pre-arranged location in Queens. He allegedly believed that he was meeting the young girl he was talking to online.
Brown said that the two men should be sent to jail if they are convicted.
“The defendants in these two cases are accused of being sexual predators that prey on young girls and do not recognize social boundaries,” Brown said. “If convicted, the defendants deserve to be sentenced to lengthy terms in prison both as punishment and to send a clear message that crimes such as these will not be tolerated in Queens County.”
