West Oak Lane pimp gets 48-96 years for trafficking teen girls
A West Oak Lane man was sentenced Friday to 48 to 96 years in prison for recruiting girls as young as 12 from the streets of Kensington and Frankford to work as prostitutes.
A West Oak Lane man was sentenced Friday to 48 to 96 years in prison for recruiting girls as young as 12 from the streets of Kensington and Frankford to work as prostitutes.
Jason Guerra, 37, was found guilty by a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury in February of sex crimes including human trafficking, rape, assault, and promoting prostitution of a minor.
Guerra at first apologized, but when Judge Diana L. Anhalt pressed him to explain his conduct, he replied, "This is all [expletive]. All the girls are lying."
Assistant District Attorney Rochelle Keyhan, who argued for the maximum state sentence of 67 to 134 years, said she was satisfied with the sentence.
"Given his age, it's essentially a life sentence, and he deserves every year of it," Keyhan said.
Guerra's attorney, Laurence A. Narcisi, asked Anhalt for leniency, saying Guerra was intelligent and had potential to reform.
Keyhan said Guerra pimped women and minors for about five years beginning in 2008. Guerra solicited teenage runaways and then enslaved them in a life of prostitution through beatings and intimidation, she said.
Keyhan said Guerra took the women to hotels near Philadelphia International Airport and in Chester, where they were kept to have sex with as many as eight men a day for several days.
Guerra was arrested in January 2014, one month after a Frankford girl escaped and went to police.
That girl - the newspaper does not identify sexual assault victims - told police that Guerra recruited her at age 12 after she ran away from a group home.
The girl testified at trial that Guerra took her to the Days Inn in Chester, posted advertisements of her online, and charged men to have sex with her.
After two weeks working in the hotel, the girl testified, Guerra took her to his West Oak Lane house and forced her to have sex with him.
"I felt like a slave," she testified at Guerra's trial. "My body was there and my soul was in another place."
Guerra kept all the money customers paid for sex and, according to court documents, also transported girls for sex to Western Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.
On Friday, the girl, now 17, said she has tried to rebuild her life. She earned a high school diploma and starts college classes on Monday.
Keyhan said that in 2008, Guerra was unemployed in New York when his brother told him to come to Philadelphia and suggested he become a pimp.
John Guerra, 40, allegedly "gave" his brother a girl, Keyhan said. Later, Jason Guerra purchased another girl from a pimp.
Keyhan said John Guerra, who was arrested in August 2014, faces a nonjury trial on prostitution-related counts on Monday before Common Pleas Court Judge Sean F. Kennedy.
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