Teens accused of sex trafficking arraigned
TRENTON >> Two 19-year-old Trenton men accused of sexually assaulting and trafficking a child could remain incarcerated at the Mercer County Correction Center for up to two years while their case plays out in the courts.
Prosecutors have filed motions seeking to place Altariq Mitchell and Daquan Patton on pretrial detention. Both defendants appeared in court via video conference on Thursday to be arraigned on their criminal offenses, and both told a judge they understand the charges against them.
Trenton Police Officer Israel Bonilla arrested Mitchell and Patton on Tuesday for their alleged role in an ongoing conspiracy to sell underage girls for sex using the website Backpage.com.
Earlier this month, police received information regarding a 12-year-old girl who was being held against her will inside an abandoned house on Monmouth Place while being forced to engage in sex, officials say.
Mitchell is accused of holding the 12-year-old victim against her will, forcing her to have sex with him and arranging for the victim to have sex with other men who answered his online advertisement to go on a date with the victim. He is also accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.
Patton is a co-defendant in the case and is accused of providing services to further human trafficking and sexually assaulting the 15-yearold victim.
Mitchell and Patton are both accused of sexually assaulting and endangering the welfare of a child through sexual conduct on March 25, according to court records. Mitchell faces additional charges of aggravated sexual assault of a victim under age 13 stemming from an incident that occurred on May 13.
New Jersey on Jan. 1 implemented criminal justice reforms that allow the state to detain certain criminal defendants without bail for up to two years.
Prior trouble
Trenton Police Officer Tomika Sommers arrested Mitchell on New Year’s Day on human trafficking and promoting prostitution charges after he allegedly gave a 16-year-old girl a cell phone so she could use Facebook and the website Backpage.com to advertise for sex.
Prosecutors on Jan. 3 filed a motion seeking to place Mitchell on pretrial detention but then withdrew the motion on Jan. 5. Consequently, Mitchell was released from custody without going through a detention hearing back then. It is possible a judge could have ordered Mitchell to be detained on Jan. 5 if the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office had decided to go through with the detention hearing.
The state this time around
appears to be taking a tougher stand against Mitchell. Assistant Prosecutor Katie Magee on Thursday said the state has filed detention motions against Mitchell and Patton due to the serious nature of the first-degree human trafficking charges.
Both Mitchell and Patton on Thursday were represented by a state public defender. Both of them are scheduled to appear in court 9 a.m. next Wednesday for their detention hearings in Mercer County Superior Court.
A Superior Court judge at next week’s detention hearing will determine whether the co-defendants are placed on pretrial detention or released from custody on their own recognizance or with non-monetary release conditions that could include home detention and electronic monitoring.