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Accused Pimp Targeted Homeless Youth Living at Covenant House, DA Says

By Gwynne Hogan | October 9, 2015 9:59am
 A sex trafficker targeted homeless youth living at Covenant House in Craigslist ads, prosecutors said.
A sex trafficker targeted homeless youth living at Covenant House in Craigslist ads, prosecutors said.
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DNAinfo/Rosa Goldensohn

CHELSEA — An accused sex trafficker targeted homeless youth in Craigslist ads recruiting “escorts,” prostituted the young girls in Manhattan and New Jersey, then threatened them when they tried to back out, prosecutors said.

East Village resident Michael Lamb, 33, was arrested on Sept. 29 and charged with three counts of sex trafficking and one count of promoting prostitution for charges that stem back to 2013, according to the Manhattan District Attorney.

Lamb recruited homeless youth who live in Covenant House's Hell's Kitchen and New Jersey shelters, on Backpage and Craigslist. He communicated with them via email and asked for personal information and their school IDs, prosecutors charge.

In certain cases, when a woman tried to back out of the arrangement, Lamb threatened the women with physical violence or said he would expose them to family and friends using the personal information he had collected, prosecutors said.

Because of the vulnerability of the victims, prosecutors didn’t specify how many girls had been involved in Lamb’s alleged sex ring or how old they were, though they said more than two women had been victimized by Lamb.

Back in June of 2014, Jayne Bigelson, Covenant House’s anti-trafficking director, spotted predatory ads on Craigslist and reported them to the District Attorney, she said.

“It said something like ‘Do you stay at Covenant House? Do you want to move out? You must live at Covenant House and be younger than twenty-two,’” she said. “It really made our blood boil.”

Another ad she saw advertised a senile roommate looking to share an apartment who had to be interested in the escort business. The ad was posted with an image of wads of $20 bills, she said.

“It made us so angry,” she said. “These young people are trying to do everything they can to improve their lives, and we’re trying to do everything we can to keep them safe.”

Pimps have long targeted Covenant House's vulnerable youth residents who don’t have families to come track them down, she said, but this took it to a whole other level.

“This is the most brazen," Bigelson said. "It’s the most out there and direct."

The District Attorney's office would not elaborate on the scope of the investigation when asked about the delay between when Covenant House first reported the ads and when Lamb was finally arrested, but a spokeswoman said that investigations take time.

A judge set Lamb's bail at $100,000 and he is being held at Manhattan Detention Complex, records show. He is due back in court on Dec. 3.

Lamb's attorney David Delbaum declined to comment this early in the case's proceedings.