LI sex trafficking case: Deliberations in Michael Johnson trial begin

A federal jury began deliberations Tuesday afternoon in the case of a Delaware man accused of sex trafficking women out of the now-shuttered Sayville Motor Lodge, where prosecutors allege the motel’s owners and staff allowed him to operate for their mutual financial benefit.

The jury will decide the fate of Michael Johnson, 36, of Selbyville, Delaware, who is on trial on charges of sex trafficking conspiracy, interstate prostitution and sex trafficking of three women he is alleged to have sold for sex out of the motel, keeping the money for himself.

"Johnson was cold, calculated and fueled by greed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Samantha Alessi said during closing arguments before U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert in Central Islip on Tuesday morning. "His only concern was his own profit."

The prosecution, which included Assistant U.S. Attorneys Catherine Mirabile and Anthony Bagnuola, centered its case largely around the testimony of seven women, most of whom witnessed and engaged in illicit activity at the motel, where they said the owners would alert guests when police were on property.

Alessi argued everyone — sex traffickers, drug dealers and the motel owners and staff — profited off the widespread illegal activity at the motel, except for the women whose bodies were sold.

Seven women who addressed the jury during three days of testimony in the case said Johnson was a drug dealer who preyed on female addicts to coerce them into prostitution, prosecutors said. The prosecutors pointed to testimony that Johnson took the identifications of the women he rented rooms for, withheld drugs and threatened them with guns he carried on a daily basis.

One woman said she believed she was in a romantic relationship with him. Several women testified that they did not know he intended to sell them to men for sex when he booked hotel rooms and advertised them online.

"He used their addictions and made sure they had no choice" but to stay and work for him, Alessi told the jury of seven women and five men who will decide the case.

But defense attorney Gary Kaufman, of Manhattan, argued that the testimony the women gave was often contradictory and did not line up with the limited physical evidence presented at trial. He referred to the testimony of the women as "re-creations, an evolution of the narrative" of their years as addicts, stories he said they shaped through years of therapy, drug counseling and preparing with prosecutors for trial.

Kaufman alleged the women are looking for someone to blame for their past troubles and chose the man who put "poison in their bodies."

"But Michael Johnson is not on trial for drugs," said Kaufman, who is defending Johnson with co-counsel Nicholas Hine, of Brooklyn.

"Was he a hustler? A philanderer? A crummy boyfriend?" Kaufman conceded of his client. "A sex trafficker? The evidence doesn’t show that."

Kaufman pointed to a November 2018 case, in which Johnson was convicted on drug and gun charges following a raid by Suffolk police of the motel that did not lead to trafficking charges in state court, as an indication his client was not engaged in prostitution-related activity. The attorney referenced testimony from a Suffolk police detective who said investigators secured video surveillance evidence from the motel for the drug case but did not present similar evidence in the trafficking case.

"Why hasn’t the government shown [the surveillance video] to you?" Kaufman asked the jury. "That’s because there is nothing to see."

The defense also noted that at least two witnesses said they posted advertisements for the alleged victims, not Johnson.

Kaufman also suggested the women’s memory might be impacted by cocaine psychosis during their years of drug use and pointed to dates the witnesses testified to as times his client was incarcerated.

Bagnuola, during a 20-minute government rebuttal, countered that the defense asking the jury to not believe the testimony of drug-addicted women is a form of "gaslighting." The prosecutor said it’s a similar tactic to the one Johnson used to coerce the women into sex work with false promises of a better life, choosing vulnerable addicts who were homeless and "had no one else" to turn to.

One of the alleged victims testified at trial that she didn’t report Johnson to police out of fear for her safety and a feeling no one would believe her story, Alessi reminded the jury.

“[Dawn asked herself] who’s going to believe a heroin-addicted prostitute?" the prosecutor said. "You should."

The Town of Islip shut down the Sayville Motor Lodge following a federal raid in November 2022. The motel was sold for $2 million as part of the federal case in October 2023 and is slated for redevelopment by an unrelated company, court records show.

Former owners Narendarakuma Dadarwala, 78, and Shardaben Dadarwala, 71, pleaded guilty of sex trafficking conspiracy along with former manager Ashokbhai Patel, 61. The couple's son Jigar Dadarwala, 47, who lived at the motel, and alleged trafficker Timothy Bullen, 38, of Bay Shore, also were charged in the indictment and have not yet gone to trial.

Deliberations, which began after 4 p.m. Tuesday and lasted 40 minutes before the jury was sent home for the day, will continue Wednesday morning.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.