Hempstead man gets 10-year prison sentence for sex trafficking operation
A Hempstead man accused of running a sex trafficking operation throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, with an additional 10 years of post-release supervision, Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced Friday.
Authorities said William Wilkinson, 30, provided victims with narcotics and subjected them to "threats of violence and acts of physical violence" in order to force them into prostitution. He also is alleged to have forced victims into prostitution to pay off "purported debts" he claimed those victims owed him for food, shelter and narcotics, the district attorney's office said in a statement.
Wilkinson recruited his victims in-person and through social media, and advertised prostitution services through various websites, scheduling the encounters across Long Island, officials said.
Wilkinson pleaded guilty on Oct. 20 to two counts of sex trafficking and one count of bribing a witness. The latter, the district attorney's office said, was because he violated an order of protection by contacting one of the victims and offering her money in exchange for providing a false affidavit while removing herself from the jurisdiction so she wouldn’t be able to testify.
Wilkinson received a sentence of two to fours years, to run concurrently with the sex trafficking sentence, for the bribery charge.
“Given the factual and evidentiary issues in this case, this plea deal was fair and just," Wilkinson's attorney, Sean M. Dixon, of Hauppauge, said Friday. He added that his client "has assumed full responsibility for his regretful conduct.”
Sentencing was before Suffolk Supreme Court Justice John Collins.
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
