East Brunswick Rabbi Appears in Court on Sex Trafficking Charge

By Carly Baldwin
Thr Patch
April 12, 2018

https://patch.com/new-jersey/eastbrunswick/east-brunswick-rabbi-appears-court-sex-trafficking-charge

An East Brunswick rabbi accused of patronizing a 17-year-old girl for sex appeared in court Tuesday, April 10, on a federal sex trafficking charge.

Rabbi Aryeh Goodman, 35, of East Brunswick, is one of 30 men accused of patronizing the 17-year-old Lancaster, Pennsylvania girl, federal prosecutors charge. Goodman is already a registered sex offender for a prior conviction. In 2013, Goodman was accused of several incidents of a sexual nature with a 12-year-old boy, who Goodman met when he worked as a counselor at Camp Menachem, a Chabad summer camp in Lackawaxen Township, Pa. The incidents allegedly occurred almost 12 years prior to his arrest.

Goodman tried to make a name for himself among Central New Jersey's Hasidic Jewish community: He operates a Jewish religious center out of his East Brunswick home, and is affiliated with another center on Lexington Avenue in the Township. He was the director of the East Brunswick Chabad. According to New Jersey Jewish News, Goodman grew up in Highland Park, the son of Rabbi Boruch and Sarah Goodman. The elder Goodman is the campus director at Chabad House at Rutgers University.

Gabriella Colon, 18, and her boyfriend, Richard Ortiz, 23, both of Bronx, allegedly sold the sexual services of the teen girl out of an East Brunswick hotel room; the hotel was not revealed in the complaint. They allegedly forced a child into commercial sex acts at multiple hotels throughout Middlesex, Bergen and Essex counties, federal attorneys say.

Colon and Ortiz were arrested at a Fort Lee motel on Feb. 16, and Goodman turned himself in to police on Feb. 6 of this year.

[ Jan. 1 and Feb. 2, the pair allegedly sold the teen to 30 men, including Goodman. He has been charged with one count of sex trafficking of a child. Read the entire criminal complaint against Goodman here: http:]

From January 2018 through February 2, 2018 Ortiz and Colon forced a child identified in the complaint as "Victim-1" to engage in commercial sex acts with various individuals at multiple hotels scattered throughout Middlesex, Bergen and Essex counties.

Federal prosecutors allege that:

When the Lancaster teen first arrived to New York, she met Colon and learned that Colon was prostituting herself to support herself and her boyfriend, Ortiz.

Shortly thereafter, Colon and Ortiz transported Victim-1 to a hotel in New Jersey, where they allegedly took sexually explicit photographs of Victim-1. Colon and Ortiz then posted those images and advertised the sexual services of Victim-1 on Backpage.com.

When customers responded to the online advertisements, Colon or Ortiz would set up "dates" with Victim-1, where they allegedly forced Victim-1 to engage in commercial sex acts with those customers. Colon or Ortiz collected all of the proceeds and purchased a Jaguar, which they then used to transport Victim-1 between New York and New Jersey to engage in additional sex acts.

Goodman, a registered sex offender, was one of the individuals who responded to the advertisements that Colon and Ortiz posted. After Goodman allegedly had sex with Vicitm-1, Goodman offered to pay for additional time with Victim-1 and later invited Victim-1 to travel to New York to meet him.

The sex trafficking charge carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum term of life imprisonment. The conspiracy to transport a minor to engage in prostitution charge is punishable by a maximum potential penalty of life imprisonment. Both charges carry a potential $250,000 fine.