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Long Island ‘predator’ indicted on sex trafficking charges for forcing two victims into prostitution using violence, tattoos to intimidate them: DA
Long Island ‘predator’ indicted on sex trafficking charges for forcing two victims into prostitution using violence, tattoos to intimidate them: DA

Mar. 29, 2023 By Bill Parry

A Long Island man was indicted on sex trafficking charges and faces up to 50 years in prison for allegedly forcing two women to engage in prostitution and assaulting and robbing them while weaponizing personalized tattoos as a twisted form of branding his victims, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on March 29.

Cleveland Sterling, 34, of Arcadia Avenue in Uniondale, was arraigned on March 28 before Queens Supreme Court Justice Peter Vallone on a 21-count indictment charging him with sex trafficking, promoting prostitution, robbery, grand larceny, petit larceny and criminal mischief.

Sterling met his first victim, a then-19-year-old woman in 2016, and on multiple occasions through November 2022 forced her to engage in sex for money at various locations across Queens, according to the charges. Sterling took photographs of his victim and used them to create online ads for sex. He communicated with customers, arranged prostitution dates and collected and required the victim to turn over to him all payments for the sexual encounters.

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Met Council leader warns of ‘catastrophe’ for low-income families in Queens due to lack of pandemic-era federal food aid

Mar. 28, 2023 By Bill Parry

As an accomplished legislator, law professor and media personality with broad experience in government and not-for-profit organizations, Met Council CEO and executive director David Greenfield is well aware of the power of words. With Passover arriving on Wednesday, April 5, and with federal pandemic food assistance no longer available to low-income families in Queens, the leader of the nation’s largest Jewish charity organization warned of a coming “catastrophe” and called for the city to step up to provide $13 million in emergency funding for pantries to help New Yorkers facing food insecurity and elevated costs of living in the borough.

Pair of Queens community organizations will activate public spaces to celebrate local cultures

Two Queens community organizations are among an inaugural cohort of five groups citywide that will lead new projects to celebrate local cultures and histories in public spaces under a new initiative called The Local Center in a partnership between Urban Design Forum and the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD).

At a time when New York is grappling with an uneven pandemic recovery and as displacement looms large for communities and neighborhoods across the five boroughs, this new endeavor will convene interdisciplinary teams to transform and activate the shared spaces where cultural traditions flourish — and importantly, center the community visions and leadership that is too often left out of the process.

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