It doesn’t take a super computer to figure out when the former Tacony-based child prostitution tycoon Enoch Smith will become a free man once again. It won’t be for a very long time, if ever.
Last Thursday, a federal judge sentenced Smith, 37, to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking of children and producing child pornography. That will run concurrently with a 40- to 80-year state prison sentence that Smith is already serving as a result of his conviction last year on similar charges. So, Smith could be close to 80 by the time he fulfills the minimum period of incarceration for each jurisdiction.
U.S. District Judge Joel Slomsky made last week’s ruling, although Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Morgan had asked the court to condemn Smith to life behind bars.
During the federal hearing, Morgan reportedly described the brothel that Smith operated in a rental house on Princeton Avenue near Erdrick Street from April 2009 through June 2011. Among several ladies that he recruited to turn tricks in the house was a girl identified in court papers as “Minor 1.” Smith met her when she was 16, brought her to live in the house, took nude photos of her that he posted on a web-based classified page and forced her to turn tricks. Smith also supplied her with crack, which she became addicted to, the prosecution said.
Philadelphia police busted the racket in June 2011 when Citywide Vice officers responded to the online sex ad, entered the Princeton Avenue house undercover and obtained a search warrant. Initially, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office took the case, but the feds adopted it in 2012. A jury convicted Smith last year.
With the defendant awaiting trial in that case, police in Bensalem Township busted him for running a similar operation at a motel on Old Lincoln Highway/U.S. Route 1 just beyond the Philadelphia city limits. Last year in a Doylestown courtroom, Smith was convicted of rape, sexual assault, corrupt organizations, conspiracy, prostitution-related offenses and drug offenses. ••
