On February 19, Jereme Benyola, was sentenced to 7-15 years in prison followed by 25 years of sex offender supervision and probation with conditions of no internet access and no contact with minors. Benyola entered a nolo contendere plea to attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, attempted indecent assault of a child, attempted corruption of minors, child sexual abuse material, and criminal use of a communication facility.
Benyola’s co-defendant, Jonathan Michael Mitchell, was sentenced to 18-48 months in prison, following an October 2024 guilty plea to charges of child sexual abuse material and criminal use of a communication facility. Mitchell was also designated a Tier 1 sexual offender under Megan’s Law, and sentenced to 36 months of probation following his incarceration.
In July 2024, a New Jersey social worker contacted police after speaking with Benyola while he was a patient at Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton. During their conversation, Benyola “alluded to child sex trafficking and the existence of child sexual abuse material” at an apartment complex in Levittown, mentioning that he had received photos of children on Cruising, a location-based LGBTQ+ dating app for men. He identified “Steve Carroll” – who law enforcement later discovered was an alias used by Mitchell – as the source of the photos.
Searches of the codefendants’ cell phones revealed that Mitchell sent child sexual abuse material involving four children, two girls and two boys, ages 2-9. Though initially communicating via an unnamed app that “offered [the children] for sex,” the codefendants transitioned their conversation to Telegram, an encrypted messaging service known for its facilitation of illegal activity. Benyola then offered Mitchell money to meet the children and, with the offer accepted, traveled to Levittown to do so on June 21, 2024. He was unable to locate the apartment, however, and police intervened before he made contact with the children.
While the CSE Institute commends law enforcement for their prompt response and intervention, in the future, a similar fact pattern would seem to necessitate trafficking charges for both Mitchell and Benyola. Similar to federal law, Pennsylvania defines trafficking of minors in part as soliciting, advertising, harboring, patronizing, or providing a minor for sexual servitude. Given that Benyola was charged with attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child and attempted indecent assault of a minor, these facts would seem to indicate that Benyola paid Mitchell specifically for sexual access to the children. Their conduct therefore explicitly meets the first part of the trafficking definition. Mitchell advertised the children through the app, harbored them at the Levittown apartment, and provided them to Benyola. Benyola solicited and patronized sexual access to the children by offering to pay Mitchell for that purpose. Ensuring that charging decisions reflect the nature of abusers’ conduct is crucial to accountability, deterrence, and public awareness.
With respect to minors, Pennsylvania law further dictates that a violation of trafficking laws must “result in a minor being subjected to sexual servitude and [be] part of a course of conduct subjecting minors to sexual servitude.” If the decision not to charge Mitchell and Benyola with trafficking-specific offenses rested on the fact that the children were not ultimately subjected to abuse by Benyola, this appears to be an incorrect application of the law. Mitchell had every intention of subjecting the children to abuse by Benyola, having accepted payment for that express purpose.
Moreover, this case highlights the importance of partnerships – the fourth “P” in the prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnerships anti-trafficking model. The investigation into Benyola, and ultimately Mitchell, began because of law enforcement’s prompt response to the report made by the hospital social worker. The CSE Institute strongly encourages this type of cross-sector collaboration, particularly in the digital age. The ease with which Benyola and Mitchell were able to communicate about exploiting children, and their inclination to transfer their conversation to an encrypted messaging platform, reflects a pattern frequently seen in cases involving online exploitation where abusers take readily available steps to protect themselves from discovery. Recognizing and acting on the red flags of trafficking in these contexts is imperative to the successful prosecution of offenders and protection of victims.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.