On July 1, Jeffrey Pettinato, 62, was sentenced to up to 30 years of incarceration for his attempt to arrange a sexual encounter with who he believed to be a 15-year-old girl in Dauphin County. Pettinato’s sentence was imposed following his guilty plea to one count each of trafficking in individuals, criminal attempt to commit trafficking in individuals, criminal solicitation to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16, and two counts of criminal solicitation to promote the prostitution of a minor. Pettinato will also be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.
Pettinato’s conviction is the consequence of his engagement with an undercover officer who he believed to be a 15-year-old girl back in October 2023. Despite knowing the officer’s undercover age, Pettinato repeatedly offered the child $50 to $100 for oral intercourse and “hand jobs”, requested sex with the child, discussed sexual topics, and requested naked images of the child. Pettinato also sent the undercover images of himself masturbating. At the time of these offenses, Pettinato was on parole supervision for promoting the prostitution of a minor in 2021.
The CSE Institute applauds Detective Kevin Leiss of the Derry Township Police Department for proactively apprehending Pettinato and the Dauphin County Human Trafficking Task Force for prosecuting Pettinato. We commend the diligence of law enforcement for their efforts in investigating and incapacitating a repeat sexual offender who has demonstrated a propensity to target and exploit young and vulnerable individuals.
Indeed, it is imperative that law enforcement proactively identifies predatory offenders online to minimize harm to children in our communities. Targeting sex buyers who knowingly seek to exploit vulnerable populations such as children is key to reducing the demand for commercial sex and reducing human trafficking overall. After all, it is this demand that fuels the sex trafficking industry.
The CSE Institute advocates for the adoption of the Equality Model in the United States. The Equality Model consists of four key elements: (1) decriminalization of the prostituted person, (2) criminalization of sex buyers and facilitators with a commitment to treating buying sex as a serious crime, (3) a public education campaign about the inherent harms of prostitution, and (4) funded, robust, holistic exit services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The Equality Model directly targets the demand for buying sex by criminalizing sex buyers and traffickers, while decriminalizing the people who are being bought and sold for commercial sex. The decriminalization of people in prostitution recognizes those who are bought and sold for sex as exploited, not as perpetrators of a crime.
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.