Michail McKen, of Baldwin, convicted of sex trafficking women on Long Island, across U.S.

A federal jury in Central Islip convicted a Baldwin man accused of sex trafficking women on Long Island and across the nation of four prostitution-related crimes on Tuesday, according to Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Prosecutors said Michail McKen, 36, used threats and violence to force multiple women into sex work for his profit. Some of the women suffered from addiction, and McKen forced them into sex work in exchange for a ration of opioids that would prevent them from going into complete withdrawal.

The jury convicted McKen, who also lived in Phoenix, of two counts of sex trafficking by force and two counts of interstate prostitution. The verdict, authorities said, followed a six-day trial before U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack. McKen faces a mandatory minimum term of 15 years in prison, and up to life, when he is sentenced.

McKen’s sex trafficking business operated in Nassau and Suffolk, as well as in Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Kentucky, Alabama and Oregon, prosecutors said.

The jury failed to convict McKen on two counts, said Carl Irace, one of McKen’s attorneys. "We are disappointed in the verdict," Irace said. "There were some shortcomings in the case against our client. The fact that the jury deadlocked on two counts reflects the shortcomings in the case against him."

Evidence presented at trial proved that McKen used violence to coerce women into sex work between 2019 and 2022, Peace said. McKen often recruited women through social media, enticing his victims with promises of a better life and a lucrative partnership. Instead, he beat, choked and threatened the women at gunpoint to control them.

One woman testified at trial that she had the word "Cavalli" tattooed across her rib cage. "Cavalli," McKen’s street name, is adopted from the name of a fashion designer, according to prosecutors.

McKen also forced his victims to abide by a strict code, forbidding them from talking to other pimps and making eye contact with other men in public. He also ordered them to wear lingerie under their street clothes, so they were always ready for sex work. He forced them to surrender identification documents to him, holding them as ransom to keep them in line, prosecutors said.

"The defendant stands convicted today of luring vulnerable women into his web of deceit and coercing them to have commercial sex with men all over the country, including on Long Island," Peace said. "He falsely promised his victims a better life, but instead controlled their lives with threats of violence and manipulation to enrich himself."