4 Brooklyn residents indicted in connection with kidnapping and promoting prostitution of 13-year-old girls

Defendants Allegedly Kept Victims in Bed-Stuy Apartment

March 2, 2015 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Brooklyn D.A. Kenneth Thompson. Eagle file Youtube screenshot

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Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson and New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton on Monday announced that four people have been named in a 32-count indictment in connection with the 2014 kidnapping of two 13-year-old girls.

The defendants have been identified as Marcus Sumpter, 25, Joann Bailey, 55, and Jerry Brown, 57 — all residing on Classon Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant. A fourth defendant is being sought. The defendants were arraigned Friday afternoon before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun. They were charged with various counts of kidnapping, promoting prostitution and endangering the welfare of a child.

Sumpter was ordered held without bail, Bailey’s bail was set at $100,000 cash or $50,000 bond and Brown’s bail was set at $50,000 cash or $25,000 bond. The defendants were ordered to return to court on April 22. The top count carries a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.

According to the investigation, on Aug. 30, 2014, the two 13-year-old girls met defendant Sumpter in the vicinity of the Franklin Avenue train station. They accompanied him back to his apartment, on Classon Avenue, where he had sex with them. The girls left the apartment the next day, but Sumpter followed them to the train station and asked them to come back to his apartment. He allegedly told them they could make money working as prostitutes. They went back to the apartment, and another defendant allegedly took scantily clad photos of them and attempted to post their pictures on craigslist.

The District Attorney’s Office added that a concerned relative texted one of the teens and allegedly received a text in return stating: “Want a date?” from one of the defendants, who had taken control of the girls’ phones. The relative then replied, “yes” and asked for the price and the location.

He went to the apartment, paid for the alleged services and retrieved the girl. The other female was subsequently found by her relatives and removed from the premises.

Prosecutors have not indicated what means of coercion or force the defendants used to keep the girls at the Bed-Stuy apartment.

“The sexual exploitation of children affects not only the victim and their family, but society as a whole,” Bratton said in a statement. Thompson paralleled the police commissioner, characterizing the alleged acts as “disgraceful.”

“Few crimes are as dehumanizing and degrading as prostitution,” Thompson said. Luckily, the young girls who were abducted are now safe and their abusers will now face justice.”

-Information provided by the Kings County District Attorney’s Office