HONESDALE, PA — A Monroe County man was sentenced to 15 to 32 years in a state facility in the Wayne County Courthouse on Friday, February 3. Noel Brown, 41, was convicted on five counts, including human sex trafficking.

The incident occurred on June 29, 2016. According to court documents, Brown, posing as a lost Uber driver, entered the victim’s home in Oregon Township and took her to his residence in Monroe County, and later to a Days Inn in Tannersville, PA. At the hotel room he made the victim, a 15-year-old female, sign a contract and took nude photos of her and posted a photo on the Internet.

The victim’s mother called the police and reported her daughter as a runaway. Pennsylvania State Police Swiftwater troopers pinged the victim’s cell phone and were able to locate her at the Days Inn hotel room. The troopers brought her back to the station and assessed that she had consumed alcohol. The victim related to the police that she had answered an advertisement on the Internet for an escort/stripper, and that she told Brown she was 18 years old. Brown then contacted her via cell phone, before picking her up from her house.

Brown was tried in November on five counts: interference with custody of children; dissemination of photos/film of child sex acts; corruption of minors; selling/furnishing liquor, malt, brewed beverage to minors; and trafficking in minors. On February 3, Judge Raymond L. Hamill also found Brown to be a sexually violent predator.

This is the first sex trafficking in minors case prosecuted in Wayne County after a new law took effect in 2014. District Attorney Janine Edwards said this jury conviction sends a strong message. “We as a community need to be vigilant to protect our young girls and boys from this predatory, dangerous and disgusting conduct. It’s out there and we must be aware.”