SEX RING

Married New Yorkers Used Foster Care System to Find Sex Trafficking Victims, prosecutors say

Kareem Mitchell, a registered sex offender, would allegedly trawl social media with his wife, looking for young women to recruit and abuse.

A registered sex offender and his wife, a foster mother, were charged with sex trafficking on Wednesday, as prosecutors alleged they recruited two of their victims after taking them in as foster children. Kareem “Napoleon” Mitchell, 38, and Sharice Mitchell, 51, allegedly ran a years-long prostitution ring that forced at least eight young women into sex work. Both pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of sex trafficking and fourth-degree conspiracy. The operation, authorities said, had been run from 2018 until earlier this month, with Kareem Mitchell primarily recruiting victims through social media. None of the women, coerced and threatened into prostitution throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, were under 18, prosecutors said. Sharice Mitchell, who took two of the victims in as foster children at her Bronx home, had lied to child welfare authorities by saying she did not live with her husband, according to an assistant district attorney. Within a month of her placement, one of the foster victims had appeared in an online advertisement for sexual services. An Administration for Children’s Services spokesperson told The New York Times that the agency could not comment on individual cases.