A Jamaica man will spend at least three years in prison after admitting he trafficked a 25-year-old woman out of an apartment at the Pomonok Houses in Fresh Meadows, taking her prostitution earnings while subjecting her to routine physical abuse. Leighton Jennings was sentenced to three to nine years behind bars this week for a scheme that prosecutors say began with promises of housing and childcare and ended in strangulation and abandonment.
Queens Supreme Court Justice Peter Vallone Jr. handed down the sentence on Thursday, also ordering Jennings to register as a sex offender once he is released, according to qns.com. Jennings pleaded guilty to sex trafficking on the eve of his trial last month, admitting he intentionally advanced or profited from the woman's prostitution through materially false statements or omissions, the outlet reported. Queens court records identified Jennings as 35 at the time of his arraignment, according to the Queens District Attorney’s Office, while the outlet's sentencing report listed him as 36.
A Promise of Stability That Turned Into Exploitation
According to the same account, Jennings met the victim in July 2024 at Penn Track in Brooklyn, where she was engaging in prostitution and living in a temporary shelter. He allegedly told her he would provide housing, supplies for her infant, job training and other necessities if she gave him a share of her prostitution proceeds — an arrangement the woman agreed to, expecting to hand over between $500 and $1,000 a day through cash and electronic transfers.
Instead of the stability he promised, Jennings moved the woman into an apartment he shared with a disabled adult at the Pomonok Houses and later refused to let her infant live there, the report states. He subjected her to routine physical abuse and took all of the money she earned, per the same account, leaving her trapped in the arrangement she had entered believing it would help her and her child.
Prostitution Spanned Two Boroughs Before Arrest
The woman engaged in prostitution at a Queens motel between March and May 2025, and separately in Brooklyn between July 2024 and May 2025, the outlet reported. The scheme came to an end when Jennings was arrested on a strangulation charge on July 11, 2025, after the victim filed a police report.
That arrest led to a seven-count indictment charging Jennings with sex trafficking, promoting prostitution, strangulation and rape, according to the Queens District Attorney’s Office. At the time, the office emphasized that criminal complaints and indictments are only accusations and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and prosecutors had said Jennings faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted at trial.
DA Katz Praises Victim for Coming Forward
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said Jennings exploited a vulnerable young woman under the guise of helping her. “This defendant promised to give a young woman a safety net but instead profited” from her prostitution, Katz said, per the outlet's report. Katz also thanked the victim for coming forward and helping hold Jennings accountable.
The case fits into a broader pattern of trafficking prosecutions moving through Queens courts. In March, a Long Island man was sentenced to 44 ½ to 52 years in prison for trafficking three women across southeast Queens, according to a separate qns.com report. And in September 2025, the Queens DA's office announced the indictment of three defendants in a separate alleged trafficking case involving a victim in Flushing, with the Queens District Attorney’s Office saying the office remains committed to fighting the exploitation of Queens residents.
Anyone with information or needing assistance related to human trafficking can contact the Queens District Attorney's Human Trafficking Bureau at 718-286-6548.
