Reading woman is sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for the sex trafficking of 2 teens

Mike Urban, Reading Eagle, Pa.
·2 min read

Apr. 23—A Reading woman who used Berks County hotel rooms for the sex trafficking of two children has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

Melissa Madera, 27, had pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to multiple child exploitation, sex-trafficking and pornography offenses before her sentencing Thursday in Allentown.

Her prison sentence will be followed by a lifetime of supervised release.

According to the U.S. attorney's office:

The charges stemmed from Madera's sex trafficking of two girls, ages 15 and 17, from about August until October 2017.

Madera forced the girls to engage in commercial sex for her own financial gain, and also plied them with drugs like Ecstasy and cocaine to ensure their compliance. Sometimes the girls would not make it to school the following day because they had been given so many drugs the previous night.

Madera also obtained a sexually explicit image of one of the girls and used it in a commercial sex-trafficking website, advertising the minor for commercial sex acts using locations in Reading.

Madera would rent two rooms at a hotel. One was used for the commercial sex acts, and Madera would stay in the other after meeting the sex buyers and charging a fee of $200 per hour.

After the 15-year-old's mother reported her missing to the Reading police department in October 2017, Madera confronted the girl and assaulted her, stating "This is what you get for being a rat."

Acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said Madera's behavior is horrifying and that she deserves every single day of that prison sentence.

"The crimes committed by this defendant will physically and psychologically impact her victims for years to come," she said. "Madera advertised these children like objects and plied them with drugs so she'd be more easily able to control them."

The case was investigated by the FBI and was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.