Riverhead, NY – A Brooklyn resident originally from Barbados is facing up to 25 years behind bars after a Suffolk County jury found him guilty of sex trafficking and a string of related charges for forcing a woman to perform sex acts in exchange for money over the course of nearly a year.
Michael Howell, 65, was convicted on Monday following a jury trial in Suffolk County Supreme Court, where prosecutors detailed how he used a combination of crack cocaine, heroin, intimidation, and repeated assaults to control his victim and profit off her exploitation in hotel rooms across Long Island and neighboring counties.
According to evidence presented at trial, from April 2023 through February 1 of this year, Howell posted online advertisements offering the woman for sex and then pocketed the money she was paid. He supplied her with narcotics to keep her dependent and would beat her—at one point slamming her head into a wall—if she resisted his orders.
Prosecutors said Howell told the woman she owed him for the drugs and for hotel accommodations, using that manufactured debt to maintain psychological control. On the day of his arrest, Howell was caught with fentanyl and a large stash of cocaine.
The jury found Howell guilty of two counts of sex trafficking, promoting prostitution in the second and third degrees, and two counts of drug possession.
