Brooklyn pimp kidnapped woman months after release from prison in teen rape case: feds
A Brooklyn sex offender who tricked two teens into sexual slavery in 2016 is accused of kidnapping yet another victim and forcing her into prostitution — just months after his release from prison.
Blake Cherry, 31, faces federal and state charges after his latest victim escaped on Friday and called 911, prosecutors say.
The woman, who law enforcement sources describe as a 27-year-old acquaintance, said he held her for a harrowing three days in her East New York home. He beat her, raped her, cut her above her eye with a pair of scissors, and made her have sex with strangers, according to court filings.
Cherry got out of prison on Oct. 16 of last year after serving a seven-year sentence for his last foray in sex trafficking — an atrocious string of crimes against two girls, ages 14 and 15, whom he duped into the sex trade in 2016. He’s listed as a Level 3 sex offender, the state’s highest risk level.
He targeted the younger teen in April 2016, chatting her up on Facebook and luring her to New York from Connecticut. She wanted to be a model, and he convinced her that he was a photographer, and she could make good money with him, according to prosecutors.
She ran away from home, boarded a Greyhound bus, and met him at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. He took her to his East New York home, where she soon learned that he had lied to her.
The 14-year-old girl was forced to sleep on a couch in Cherry’s bedroom, while he slept with his girlfriend nearby. He beat his girlfriend in front of the teen, terrifying her, then told the girl she’d be having sex with men who answered a Backpage.com ad, prosecutors said.
Cherry introduced the girl to an accomplice, Quayshaun Canady, who took her to a hotel and forced her to work as a prostitute for him as well. After several days, she got sick, and Canady brought her back to Cherry’s house. She escaped to a shelter, and was reunited with her family.
Canady was also arrested, and sentenced in 2017 to two to six years behind bars. He’s back in prison on a 2023 burglary conviction.
Cherry targeted the second teen in October 2016, luring her to his house by telling her they’d go out shopping, prosecutors said. There, Cherry and others fed her booze and took pictures of her, which he put on Backpage.com.
When she told him she didn’t want to be a prostitute, he took her to his basement and raped her, then drove her around Brooklyn and Queens and forced her to have sex with men for money, prosecutors said.
The girl snapped a picture of Cherry’s license plate and sent it to a family member, and the NYPD tracked the car to Queens, rescuing her moments before a meet-up with a john.
Cherry wound up pleading guilty to sex trafficking and second-degree promoting prostitution, and was sentenced to seven years behind bars in March 2018. He served the full seven years, and was forced to register as a sex offender on his release.
It only took him a few months to get back into the forced prostitution business, state and federal prosecutors allege.
“Upon his release, the defendant immediately engaged in the very same conduct that resulted in his prior term of incarceration despite being monitored as a probationer and registered sex offender,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Shanies wrote in a Monday memo to a federal judge. “The defendant’s release would jeopardize not only the safety of the identified victim but also other women and girls in the New York City region.”
He kidnapped the most recent victim on May 6, keeping her in his East New York house, according to a criminal complaint. Cherry beat and choked her, cut her face with scissors, and forced her to have sex with him. On May 7, he used an app on his phone to shop her to prostitution clients, according to court documents.
When she escaped, she told a 911 dispatcher she was being sold, “beat on” and hit in the face, federal prosecutors allege.
Cherry was arraigned on kidnapping, assault, rape and other charges in Brooklyn criminal court Saturday, then appeared before Brooklyn Federal Court Magistrate Judge James Cho on Monday, where he was hit with a federal sex trafficking charge. Cho ordered him held without bail.
The federal charge carries a mandatory minimum 15-year sentence and a maximum of life.
Cherry’s lawyer, Kyla Wells of the Federal Defenders, declined comment Tuesday.
