A federal indictment charged a Florida man with sex trafficking multiple women and sexually assaulting a minor, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Wednesday.
Forty-one-year-old Joel David Forney of Kissimmee was arrested Wednesday and faces three counts of “sex trafficking; interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution; and coercion and enticement of a minor,” according to the DOJ’s statement.
Forney allegedly exploited multiple women in dire financial straits, according to the statement. The DOJ alleged he violently assaulted and threatened them, then allegedly trafficked them into commercial sex in New York and other states for his financial gain. The alleged victims were sex workers at the Penn Track, “an open-air sex trafficking market along a stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn,” according to the statement.
Forney — also known as “Sirbar” — allegedly enticed one of the women from her Wisconsin home to a New York City hotel in the summer of 2016, promising her a legitimate job, according to a Wednesday statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York. He then allegedly raped her, threatened her, sex trafficked her in hotels in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other places and allegedly kept most of the proceeds. Forney allegedly physically and sexually assaulted the woman if she did not earn enough money or was deemed disrespectful. He allegedly often threatened to kill her. He once allegedly showed her a photograph of a dismembered woman and said “this is what happens to bi—–s who leave their pimps.”
Forney allegedly sex-trafficked another woman at the Penn Track in October 2017, kept most of the proceeds and allegedly physically assaulted her, once breaking a front tooth of hers with a punch, the statement from the Attorney’s Office revealed. The alleged cycle of sex trafficking at the Penn Track, as well as the alleged violence and threats, were the same for a third woman whom Forney allegedly began trafficking in May 2017.
Forney allegedly met a 14-year-old girl while she was walking homeward on a Queens street in June 2014, the statement continued. He allegedly learned of her age, exchanged contacts and kept communicating with her, and then lured her to his home where he allegedly raped her. (RELATED: Suspected Member of MS-13 Accused Of Sex-Trafficking 17-Year-Old Girl: REPORT)
Individual Charged With Sex-Trafficking of Women on Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn Known as the “Penn Track,” and Enticement Of A Minor https://t.co/0JByLmqqgF (Announced with @CivilRights and @NewYorkFBI)
— US Attorney EDNY (@EDNYnews) April 17, 2024
The Penn Track, an industrial loop of streets where garbage trucks park, is one of the most popular prostitution hubs in the U.S., with as many as 350 pimps allegedly employ many young women, police said, ABC7 New York reported. Officers reportedly alleged that they believe the majority of the women are there by means of coercion.
“There is a huge misconception around choice, right, around the idea that these women are just choosing to do this because they woke up one day and decided they wanted to,” sex trafficking survivor Melanie Thompson told the outlet.
Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Forney’s alleged actions were “cruel and depraved crimes,” according to his office’s statement.
“We will continue working with our law enforcement partners to eradicate the degradation of women forced into sex work at the Penn Track and elsewhere in the district,” Peace added.
Forney, arrested in Kissimmee, faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted, according to the statements.