Via reporter Levi Pulkkinen of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Man admits trying to force girl to prostitute herself
By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTERA Renton man accused of trying to force a 13-year-old girl to prostitute herself on Seattle streets pleaded guilty Wednesday to a sex crime.
Prosecutors asserted Tyrone A. Bellinger, 24, lured the girl into his car and, after showing her his pistol, forced her to sell herself in August 2007.
He pleaded guilty to attempted promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor, a felony.
I could be wrong here but I’m guessing the behavior of predators like Mr. Bellinger are a lot more infuriating to proponents of legalizing sex work than are opponents.
If I hadn’t once been 13 myself… and if I didn’t have a 12-and-a-half year old child myself… I’d be perplexed by some of the behavior of the victim. From getting into the car with Bellinger and “an associate” to not flagging down a police car where she was dropped off or using the cell she was given to call 911 you just want to say “what was she thinking!?!?!” And not in a “blame the victim” sense but in a parental/diagnostic sense of what’s the logic of the combination of vulnerability, independence, intelligence and inexperience because.
He didn’t drop the child off in my neighborhood exactly, but he did drop her off on the corner near the grocery store I drive to for my big trip for the week’s groceries. But he drove her through my neighborhood on the way.
He dropped the child off literally on the other end of town from where he picked her up — 15 miles or so.
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He dropped the child off in an area where, sort of fortunately, no serial killers are currently known to be preying on prostitutes. Although, of course, since sex-workers are treated like the scum of the earth by friend and foe alike it sometimes takes a while for anyone to notice when a new serial killer takes up residence.
Somehow Bellinger got the idea that the way you make money is by appropriating children, intimidating them with violence or threats of violence, translocating them far from their support infrastructures, forcing them to sell sexual labor, and keeping all or most of the proceeds. Somehow he missed out on the possibility that maybe those children, being human beings and all, have their own ideas, their own possibilities, their own futures to unwind in front of them.
And… hey… maybe he was trying to run children because adult sex workers don’t… actually… need fucking pimps to make their decisions for them.
I dunno. All I know is that Bellinger pled guilty to the felony of commercial sexual abuse of a minor and will spend two years in prison. Which makes me wonder what other charges he was facing to make that plea look attractive.
It would be very nice, by the way, if upon release he had to register as a Level III Sex Offender. Because parole only lasts so long. And before one can argue that that’s a misuse of sex-offender statues you’d have to first argue how, exactly, selling sex with a child is a lesser offense than having sex with a child one’s self.
