49-Year-Old Newark Man Convicted For Interstate Trafficking Teen Girl & Woman In N.J. Prostitution Scheme

Monday, July 29, 2024, 1:30 P.M. ET. 2 Minute Read, By Art Fletcher: Englebrook Independent News,

TRENTON, NJ.- According to U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger, a 49-year-old Newark, New Jersey man was convicted in U.S. Federal Court in Trenton, New Jersey, on charges of sex trafficking and prostitution-related offenses.

     Following a seven-day trial, on Thursday, July 25, 2024, a jury sitting in Federal Court found Amin Sharif, 49, of Newark, New Jersey, guilty on the charges of Sex Trafficking of a Minor; Use of an Interstate Facility to Promote Unlawful Activity; Transporting a Victim to Engage in Prostitution; and Inticing and or Persuading a Victim to Travel to Engage in Prostitution.

     The conviction stems from an investigation that began in January 2021 when Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigations began into Sharif’s activities for transporting and attempting to transport women and minors from multiple states to New Jersey and elsewhere for the purpose of engaging in commercial sex acts. 

     Sharif recruited four females from New York, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Utah. Sharif utilized five social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook to recruit and entice victims, creating fake names, including Dallas Love, Chance, Razzile Dazzile, Truman Peterman, and Daddy.

    During communication via social media, Sharif promised certain victims housing, payment of bills and expenses, and the potential to earn up to thousands of dollars a day. Sharif advertised one of the victims, a minor child, online offering her for 32 sexual acts.

     During the time Sharif was committing these offenses, he was on supervised release for a prior conviction for conspiracy to transport a minor to engage in prostitution, for which he was sentenced to a term of ten years in federal prison.

     Sharif will be sentenced on November 5, 2024, and will face decades in federal prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for the charges he was convicted of.