On February 13, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced the conviction of Melad Fahmy, 44, of Dauphin County, for attempted coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution. Fahmy now faces up to life in prison with a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. This conviction was a result of a multi-agency undercover operation created to combat instances of human trafficking and child exploitation.
In February 2022, Fahmy responded to an online advertisement posted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a website known to advertise prostitution and escort services. Fahmy began communicating with an undercover agent posing as a woman who was trafficking her minor niece. Fahmy then attempted to entice the child to engage in sex acts for $100 and was arrested after arriving at a Harrisburg hotel with $100 in cash.
On February 1, 2023, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Fahmy, charging him with one count of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor. Specifically, the indictment alleged that Fahmy was charged with “…using a facility and means of interstate and foreign commerce, unlawfully and knowingly did attempt to persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a person he believed had not attained the age of 18 years to engage in prostitution and any sexual activity for which he could be charged with a crime…” Fahmy pleaded not guilty and filed a motion to dismiss, which was later denied.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative established in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. This initiative was started to combat the growing epidemic child sexual exploitation and abuse throughout the United States. Project Safe Childhood seeks to combine federal, state, and local resources to better identify victims, as well as locate and prosecute individuals who exploit children online.
The CSE Institute applauds law enforcement’s collaborative efforts to combat commercial sexual exploitation of minors by targeting sex buyers. 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.
While the CSE Institute applauds the United States Attorney’s Office for their decision to prosecute Fahmy for his attempted sex crimes against children, we are disappointed that he was not charged under the federal human trafficking statute for the sex trafficking of a minor.
Under federal law, a person is guilty of trafficking if they recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, obtain, advertise, maintain, patronize, or solicit a person who is subject to sexual servitude through the means of force, fraud, or coercion. To convict an individual of child sex trafficking, the prosecution only has to prove one of the above acts. Any form of commercial sexual exploitation of minors constitutes sex trafficking because minors cannot consent to being bought or sold for sexual acts.
Accordingly, the CSE Institute would like to emphasize that there is no such thing as a minor prostitute or child prostitute. There are only victims and survivors of child rape. Here, the facts indicate that Fahmy was communicating with who he believed to be a child’s aunt, attempting to exchange money with her for access to rape her minor niece. Fahmy was not attempting to entice this minor into prostitution; Fahmy was attempting to rape and traffic the child by engaging in a transaction for access to her body. These facts clearly show that Fahmy attempted to solicit sex from an individual he believed to be a child subject to sexual servitude. Simply, this satisfies the elements of the federal human trafficking statute for the sex trafficking of a minor.
The CSE Institute commends both the United States Attorney’s Office for prosecuting Fahmy, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pennsylvania State Police, the Dauphin County Drug Task Force, and the Lower Paxton Township Police Department for investigating, arresting, and charging Fahmy.
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, and 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 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.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates on this matter.
All views expressed herein are person to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or Villanova University.