On February 22, a Hazleton man was arraigned in Luzerne County on charges of promoting prostitution of a minor and unlawful contact with a minor, in addition to a litany of other prostitution-related charges. Keefer McKenzie Ngirngesechei allegedly contacted a sixteen year old girl on social media and paid her several times to participate in sexual acts on the grounds of a local high school and other locations. The twenty-one year old man is also accused of offering the teenage girl $1,000 for nude photographs. He was arrested in the summer of 2016 by Pennsylvania State Police.
Ngirngesechei was also charged with similar crimes in Carbon County in a separate matter, and all the charges have been consolidated for prosecution in Luzerne County, according to prosecuting attorney Tom Marsilio, an Assistant District Attorney for Luzerne County.
The Pennsylvania State Police are one of the many first responders on the front lines fighting against commercial sexual exploitation. In this instance, it is particularly encouraging that the Pennsylvania State Police arrested someone perpetrating such an act against a minor. Traditional law enforcement practices disproportionately focused on arresting prostituted persons in far greater numbers than buyers.
The CSE Institute congratulates the State Police on the arrest, and thanks them for their continued determination in shifting the focus towards those who purchase sex, rather than focusing on those prostituted persons, many of whom are young females victimized by patrons many years older than them. With the determination and support of our law enforcement agencies, we can continue to target the demand for commercial sex in Pennsylvania and reduce the victimization of the young girls in the Commonwealth.
The CSE Institute also encourages the Luzerne County District Attorney’s office to consider adding charges under Pennsylvania’s human trafficking statute to their case against Ngimgesechei. The facts and charges for the Hazleton man indicate that, in addition to being charged as a sex buyer, charges for trafficking in minors might also be appropriate. In Pennsylvania, any commercial sex act involving a minor qualifies as trafficking under Pennsylvania human trafficking law, even if the minor is not subjected to force, fraud, or coercion and even if the minor does not self-identify as a victim. The CSE Institute encourages the Luzerne County District Attorney’s office to join the growing trend of aggressively using Pennsylvania’s human trafficking statute to prosecute those who commercially sexually exploit minors.