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Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Cleveland Sterling was sentenced to 44 to 52 years in prison for sex trafficking three women in southeast Queens and repeatedly assaulting two of them. <\/p>\n
File photo courtesy of the DA\u2019s office<\/p>\n
A Long Island man was sentenced on Tuesday, March 17, to 44 \u00bd to 52 years in prison for sex trafficking three women at various locations across southeast Queens between 2019 and 2022. <\/p>\n
Cleveland \u201cDollarz\u201d Sterling, 38, of Arcadia Avenue in Uniondale, was convicted at trial last month on sex trafficking, promoting prostitution, robbery and other related crimes, after the jury deliberated for two days before reaching a verdict.<\/p>\n
According to the investigation and trial testimony, Sterling met the first victim, a 22-year-old woman, in 2019 and forced her to engage in sex for money at various locations in Queens through November 2022. Sterling took photographs of the victim and used them to create online ads for sex. He communicated with customers, arranged prostitution bookings and required the victim to turn over all proceeds from the sexual encounters to him. Sterling struck the victim when she withheld cash or refused to comply with his orders. Sterling routinely inflicted violence on the victim, including when she did not want to have sex with customers for money. On one occasion, Sterling struck her so hard that he broke some of her teeth. During another assault, Sterling struck her in the head with a glass bottle, requiring the victim to get staples to close the laceration to her head.<\/p>\n
Sterling met the second victim, a 19-year-old woman, in August 2021. They began an intimate relationship, which transitioned into the defendant instructing the victim to have sex with men in exchange for money. The defendant posted prostitution ads, arranged the encounters and collected all the proceeds from the sex acts. Sterling became violent whenever the victim expressed opposition to engaging in prostitution and assaulted her numerous times. On one occasion in October 2021, the victim alerted the NYPD when Sterling forcibly stole money from her, and police officers observed bruising on her body.<\/p>\n
Sterling met the third victim, a 27-year-old woman, in July 2019 and the two started dating. After approximately two weeks, the defendant took her to the JFK Inn at 154-10 South Conduit Ave. in Jamaica, where he had another victim waiting. Sterling told the woman that she had to work for him and forced her to pose naked for photographs for sex advertisement. He ordered her to engage in prostitution, arranged the dates, and collected the proceeds after the sex acts.<\/p>\n
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Sterling took his third victim, whom he had been dating, to the JFK Inn on South Conduit Avenue in Jamaica, where he told her she now worked for him as a prostitute and took naked photos of her for online sex ads. Photo via Google Maps<\/p>\n
During the course of being trafficked, two of the victims received tattoos bearing a form of the defendant\u2019s name that was used to brand them. Sterling told the first victim that she would first have to cut off her own foot because his name was tattooed on it and that it belonged to him. The second victim \u2014 who while getting tattooed, believed she was getting a different tattoo \u2014 was tattooed with Sterling\u2019s street name \u201cDollarz\u201d and told her she was now his property.<\/p>\n
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Sterling assaulted two of his victims at these neighboring hotels on Archer Avenue in southeast Queens. Photo via Google Maps<\/p>\n