Charter Jet CEO Arrested, Charged with Child Sex Trafficking
The CEO of a charter airline has been charged with sex trafficking after police said he allegedly tried to connect clients with girls as young as 12.
Paul Alexander, 57, who was already a registered sex offender, told those he dealt with to give what he called “ghetto rats” drugs and alcohol to “make them more cooperative,” prosecutors have charged, according to the Daily News.
He showed utter disdain for his young victims, said authorities.
Prosecutors said that Alexander, CEO of Central Jet Charter, told clients the girls he supplied were “from the Bronx … the poorest county” and that they could please the girls with food and “a couple of dollars.”
Thursday’s arrest of Alexander came after months of suspicions after a teen victim came forward and accused him of trafficking her and other underage girls, according to a news release from the office of the state attorney general.
The investigation by the state Attorney General’s Organized Crime Task Force and the NYPD’s Human Trafficking Team was dubbed “Operation Mile High.”
Alexander was arrested after a meeting with an undercover officer in which he is accused of offering the undercover officer the services of a 12-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl. The deal was that the undercover cop could have one for $100 or both for $300, prosecutors said.
The undercover officer was shown pictures of the girls naked. The girls were also called during the meeting so they could say hello to the prospective customer, authorities said.
Alexander has been charged with sex trafficking of a child, attempted sex trafficking, endangering the welfare of a child and prostitution. He is currently held without bail.
Alexander has been on New York State’s Sex Offender Registry since 2003 after facing a charge of “deviate sexual intercourse” with a 17-year-old girl.
His conviction in that case of child pornography adds to a record that included prison time in 1992 for sex abuse in 1992 and in 2008 for bribery.
Dan Santiago, 26, who lives in the same building as Alexander, said he often saw groups of young girls and men trooping in and out of Alexander’s apartment, according to the New York Post.
“I would always see him with little girls up there,” he alleged.
“It was never one person coming out of the apartment, it was always like a group. I found that suspicious. He was doing something up there for sure.”
The Daily News quoted a neighbor whose name it did not give as saying she warned Alexander away from her daughters.
“He would bring a lot of little girls here — Black, Hispanic, Chinese — he brings women of all types and walks of life, and a lot of girls. He never messed with my daughters, thank God, and I’ll tell you why,” she said. “He would make so much noise that I would have to take a broom and bang on the ceiling. I could hear everything and I went up there one time with a bat in my hand.”
She said she told Alexander, “If you ever touch one of my girls or as so much as look at me wrong, I will kill you right here. If you touch a single girl of mine, I will kill you.”
Alexander’s case is the first use of the state crime of sex trafficking of a child, which strengthens prosecutors’ ability to hold sex traffickers accountable. The 2018 law was designed to make it easier to convict human traffickers.
“There is nothing more reprehensible than sexually exploiting a child,” said Attorney General Letitia James in the news release.
“This individual’s alleged actions jeopardized the health and safety of our children and highlighted the critical need for these new protections that strengthen our ability to hold perpetrators accountable for these gross violations of the law. I thank the NYPD for their partnership in this investigation, and I will continue to use all the tools at my office’s disposal to hold accountable those who seek to abuse our children,” she said.
If convicted on all counts, Alexander could face up to 50 years in prison.
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