Cleveland Sterling Sentenced 44 Years for Queens Sex Trafficking

This is not a story about community events or high school sports. But it is, in the most urgent sense, a story about this community, and what happened inside it.

A man who lived in Uniondale will spend the next four to five decades in prison. Last Tuesday, a Queens judge sentenced Cleveland Sterling, 38, to 44 and a half to 52 years behind bars for sex trafficking three women across southeast Queens between 2019 and 2022. The verdict came after a jury deliberated for two days before convicting Sterling last month on sex trafficking, promoting prostitution, robbery and related charges.

Sterling, who went by the name “Dollarz,” met each of his victims through what appeared to be ordinary circumstances. A chance meeting. A new relationship. A few weeks of dating. What followed, prosecutors say, was anything but ordinary.

The first victim was 22 years old when Sterling met her in 2019. He photographed her, placed ads for sex online using those photos, arranged the encounters and required her to hand over every dollar she earned. When she refused, or held back cash, he hit her. The violence was systematic and severe. On one occasion, he struck her hard enough to break her teeth. On another, he hit her in the head with a glass bottle, leaving a wound that required staples to close. This continued through November 2022.

The second victim was 19 when they met in August 2021. Their relationship started as something intimate before Sterling directed her toward prostitution. He posted the ads. He arranged the dates. He collected the money. In October 2021, after Sterling forcibly stole cash from her, she contacted the NYPD. Officers who responded observed bruising on her body.

The third victim was 27. She and Sterling had been dating for roughly two weeks when he drove her to the JFK Inn on South Conduit Avenue in Jamaica. Another victim was already there. Sterling told the 27-year-old she now worked for him. He took naked photographs of her for online ads and gave her no room to refuse.

Two of the three victims were tattooed with a variation of Sterling’s name during the time they were being trafficked. Sterling told the first victim that the tattoo meant she belonged to him, and that the only way to be free of it was to cut off her own foot.

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced the sentence. The case was prosecuted by the DA’s Human Trafficking Bureau.

Long Island has a trafficking problem that rarely gets the attention it deserves. Nassau and Suffolk counties see cases every year that involve victims recruited locally, trafficked regionally and, often, brought back across county lines. Sterling lived in Uniondale. His crimes played out in Queens. That kind of geographic pattern is common in trafficking cases, where perpetrators move victims to reduce the risk of local recognition and complicate jurisdictional responses.

Advocates who work with trafficking survivors on Long Island have long pointed to the challenge of identifying victims who may not present as victims at all. Many are in relationships with their traffickers. Many carry visible marks of that control, literally, on their skin. The path from violence to help is rarely straightforward, and the fact that one of Sterling’s victims contacted police at all reflects real courage under conditions designed to make that impossible.

Sterling will be in his late 70s or older before he is eligible for release, if he lives that long. For the women he trafficked, the sentence closes a chapter. What comes next for survivors of sustained trafficking is a longer and less certain road.

If you or someone you know needs help, the National Human Trafficking Hotline is available 24 hours a day at 1-888-373-7888, or by texting “HELP” to 233733. Safe Horizon, which operates across the New York metro area including Long Island, also provides direct services to trafficking survivors.