Latest news with #childprostitution
ABC News
30-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Prominent Sydney plastic surgeon sentenced to six years' jail for engaging in child prostitution
Prominent Sydney plastic surgeon Richard Sackelariou has been sentenced to six years in jail, with a four-year non-parole period for engaging in child prostitution. The District Court has heard Sackelariou lured six girls into hotel rooms for sex, grooming them with large sums of money. In December last year, Sackelariou, aged 70, pleaded guilty to 10 charges involving girls in Sydney, Queensland and Newcastle in 2021 and 2022. Agreed police facts tendered in Newcastle District Court showed Sackelariou met his first victim, a 15-year-old girl, at a hotel in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood. The documents said he paid her $22,000 for sex between September 2021 and September 2022. In September 2022, Sackelariou also made online contact with one of four girls from Newcastle. Agreed facts tendered to the court stated that he met the then 14-year-old at an apartment in Sydney. He paid her cash in a white envelope and said he would give her extra money for the morning-after pill. That girl's friends learnt she had met up with the doctor for sex and contacted him separately, asking to meet in Newcastle. The police facts said two hotel rooms were booked in Newcastle on October 7, 2022. Several girls turned up, aged 13 to 15. Police said he paid three Newcastle victims a total just shy of $4,000. There was also a victim in Queensland, who he started communicating with in December 2021 when she was 14. They met several times and, between their first online chat and October 2022, he paid her a total of $7,622. Sackelariou told his sentencing hearing he was "ashamed" of the offences he had committed. "I'm appalled," he said. "I created such harm and such damage." The court heard Sackelariou understood the psychological damage his victims had suffered, and said his actions also affected his now ex-wife and children. "I've shamed them, embarrassed them. My sons don't wish to talk to me," he said. "I betrayed my wife." Due to time already served, Sackelariou will be eligible for parole in November 2026. More to come.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
Milwaukee undercover child sex trafficking operation, 3 men charged
The Brief Prosecutors charged three men with attempting to solicit a child for prostitution. Their arrests were part of an undercover sex trafficking operation. Court filings said all three men believed they were chatting with a 16-year-old girl. MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee County prosecutors have charged three men with attempting to solicit a child for prostitution as part of an undercover sex trafficking operation. What they're saying Milwaukee police and the Human Trafficking Task Force of Greater Milwaukee conducted an undercover operation to target people who were looking to have sex with underage girls. Detectives and task force members posted an online advertisement with a picture of a teen. An undercover officer, posing as a 16-year-old girl, replied to chats. FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX LOCAL Mobile app for iOS or Android Prosecutors said 48-year-old Jose Juan Velazquez Medina of Oconomowoc, 38-year-old Domingo Cansino of Milwaukee and 30-year-old Donovan Murrell of Milwaukee each chatted with who they thought was a 16-year-old girl and made arrangements to pay for sex acts. Cansino also offered to pick up the supposed teen from school. All three men were arrested at an apartment building near Layton Boulevard and Pierce Street on the city's south side. Two of the three men showed up with the money to cover the arranged payment for sex. The Source Information in this report is from the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office and Wisconsin Circuit Court.
Washington Post
09-05-2025
- Washington Post
The price of a plea bargain
This column is about the assault of girls and women. It's also about a criminal justice system that hits and misses. If federal sentencing guidelines had been followed, you probably would not be reading today about Linwood Barnhill Jr., a convicted sex offender who dirtied his D.C. police badge when he enticed two teenage girls into the prostitution racket that he operated out of his Southeast Washington apartment in 2013. Federal sentencing guidelines recommended nine to 12 years for the counts of pandering of a minor for prostitution and possession of child pornography that he pleaded guilty to. Barnhill, however, negotiated a seven-year plea agreement with the U.S. attorney's office. He served his shortened sentence, and thus was released from federal custody five years ago to return to the District, where he allegedly engaged with the sex trafficking of children.
