Pennsylvania Man Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Sex Trafficking

The Justice Department announced today that Corderro Cody, 28, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, was sentenced today to 30 years in prison for running a sex trafficking operation.

Cody pleaded guilty on Oct. 30, 2015, to one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; 12 counts of sex trafficking; one count of conspiracy to transport individuals across state lines for the purpose of prostitution and one count of sex trafficking of a minor.  In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge Edward G. Smith of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ordered 20 years of supervised release and a $1,500 special assessment.

Since at least 2009 through May of 2014, Cody recruited women to work as prostitutes, referred to his prostitution business as the “program” and advertised the women on Backpage.com.  The women were sometimes driven to other states and forced to perform sexual acts.  Cody recovered and kept most, if not all, of the money generated by the sexual acts.  He also used physical force in the form of rape and violent assaults as well as extreme emotional manipulation when the women did not adhere to the “program” and to maintain the women performing commercial sexual acts.  Cody forced one victim to work for him as a prostitute when she was just 17 years old.

“Cody operated a vicious sex trafficking scheme, using brutal physical attacks and emotional abuse to compel his victims to continue selling their bodies for his profit,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.  “The Civil Rights Division remains fiercely committed to holding traffickers accountable for their reprehensible conduct, and to safeguarding the rights and dignity of survivors of this heinous crime.”

“The sentence imposed today will ensure that this defendant is unable to subject other girls and women to the tortures that these victims endured,” said U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

“Investigations like this highlight the collaborative efforts of the many law enforcements agencies involved in the aggressive fight against human trafficking,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jack P. Staton of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Philadelphia.  “This sentence should serve as a warning to all individuals and criminal groups involved in the trafficking of minors and women that we are determined to investigate and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all that are involved in this heinous crime.”

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations and the Allentown Police Department.  It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri A. Stephan Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Trial Attorney Anita Channapati of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit.