A Catasauqua woman has been convicted of sex trafficking a 12-year-old child in 2024.<\/p>\n
Julie Acosta, 42, faces 46 to 92 years in state prison for conspiracy to rape a child, trafficking in individuals with the intent to recruit, entice or solicit, sexual exploitation of children, simple assault and intimidation of a witness, according to the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office. A jury found her guilty on all charges following\u00a0a three-day trial before Judge Robert L. Steinberg.<\/p>\n
In April 2024, Acosta took the child and their siblings to a hotel on Airport Road in Allentown, where they split a room with Joshua Martel, 32, of Allentown. While there, Martel gave Acosta $100 and two bags of crystal methamphetamine. In exchange, Acosta left the victim alone with Martel, who then sexually and physically assaulted her and prevented her from escaping, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
After Acosta\u2019s arrest as part of the investigation into the incident, she was sent to Lehigh County Jail. While incarcerated, Acosta attempted on multiple occasions to contact the victim despite being ordered by Lehigh County Children and Youth not to do so. On one occasion, Acosta used another inmate\u2019s tablet to ask the victim to tell authorities she lied about the incident and not cooperate so she could be released from jail, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Martel pleaded guilty to rape of a child and trafficking, as well as statutory sexual assault involving a second victim. In both of those cases, Martel was sentenced to serve 21 to 50 years in state prison.<\/p>\n
Acosta is being held at Lehigh County Jail without bail as she awaits her sentencing hearing on April 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Catasauqua woman has been convicted of sex trafficking a 12-year-old child in 2024. Julie Acosta, 42, faces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,8469,46,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-95745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-catasauqua","tag-courts","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}