Violent St. Albans Senior Housing Pimp Convicted in Queens Court

By Christina Carrega

A Queens judge is expected to sentence a St. Albans predator to up to eight years in prison for admitting that he took advantage of a drug-addicted senior citizen and pimped a teenage girl, prosecutors said.

Joseph Gilbert pleaded guilty before Queens Supreme Court Justice Peter Vallone Jr. on Thursday for attempting to sex traffick a 16-year-old girl from December 2016 to March 2017.

“The youngster suffered greatly, but managed to escape the clutches of the defendant. She will, however, have to live with the memory of this experience for the rest of her life,” said Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown in a statement Friday.

Gilbert, 26, coerced the girl to move into an apartment inside a Jamaica senior residence, where he lived with a senior citizen who was addicted to drugs. Gilbert turned the apartment into a prison for the teenager by forcing her to have sex dates with strangers and to turn over all the money she made, prosecutors said.

When the girl had enough of engaging in prostitution and requested to leave, Gilbert viciously beat and threatened her.

Gilbert is expected to be sentenced to four to eight years in prison on Jan. 25.