Charges:
In May 2017 Oliver Sohngen, 52, a married father of two and noted Queens music school founder and children's voice teacher, was arrested for child sex trafficking.
Sohngen is charged with conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors, sex trafficking of minors, attempted sex trafficking of minors, and attempted inducement of minors to engage in sexual activity.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said: “This defendant came to the Bronx to allegedly engage in the dehumanizing treatment of girls ensnared in sex trafficking, even allegedly trying to arrange sexual encounters with girls as young as 8 years old.
Pedophile codes used:
When Sohngen and a Bronx trafficker texted one another they inverted the numbers in the children's ages. For example, age 13 would be texted as '31', age 8 as '80'. Age 11 was texted as Ii.
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When the slaver texted Sohngen about a child, he used the code "something for you."
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The complaint was written by a Homeland Security Special Agent and is linked in the DOJ press release: Warning PDF
16-year-old accomplice:
Heartbreaking!! The '61' meaning the 16-year-old, was taking a group of children to Chuck E. Cheese in Harlem. She was planning to let Sohngen remove two of these children from outside the front of the building. He was then going to take them to a hotel. Afterwards he was to bring them back to the front of Chuck E. Cheese, while their families thought they were at Chuck E. Cheese the entire time!
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And why did Sohngen know whether there is only one Harlem Chuck E. Cheese?
CSA and exploitation in elite music schools:
The police reported none of Sohngen's elite music school students appear to have been victims:
Which is good news, but then I saw this article in The Telegraph. Apparently there is a huge problem of CSA and cover-ups in elite music teaching:
"Does Elite Music Teaching Leave Pupils Open to Abuse?"
[...] renowned pianist and teacher Ian Pace asks if we need a fundamental change in the way we teach music to put a stop to exploitation and abuse:
As organiser of a petition calling for an inquiry into abuse in music I have been made aware of many horrendous allegations (a great many of which have not yet become public), including further afield in the US, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Russia.
In the last few months, the musicologist Geoff Baker has recently published his findings of numerous allegations of sexual abuse within the massive El Sistema music educational project in Venezuela
Musical institutions are often found to have dismissed allegations (and sometimes dismissed or threatened allegers) prioritising their own reputations, a pattern which continues following convictions.
These institutions rarely reach out to the victims who are as much a part of their legacy as the successful musicians who adorn their publicity materials.
In this rigidly hierarchical and anti-democratic culture, it should be no surprise that some musicians have had little problem flourishing under dictatorships.
All of Britain's elite music schools are involved:
2013: Abuse scandals: Britain’s elite music education in crisis
As a Channel 4 News investigation implicates all five of Britain’s music schools in a sex scandal, the elite music world reels – with former pupils, teachers and professionals calling for an inquiry."
2015: Nigel Kennedy: 'Bad things can happen in music schools'
A 2013 Telegraph report suggested that there “could be up to 100 victims of sexual abuse at the UK’s five elite music schools”.
Two months before Oliver Sohngen's arrest a carefully worded unenthusiastic profile of his accomplishments appeared in the Huffington Post; it almost seemed the reporter might have heard something:
The school, Long Island City Academy of Music,
has two dozen acclaimed teachers and nine music rooms and offers lessons in everything from piano and drums to voice.
[Oliver Söhngen] brings his Instagram account up on his smartphone and starts showing off videos of his pupils.
He’s particularly proud of a 7-year-old girl who has a big voice.
And listen to this one: She’s the [--]-year-old who will be performing [at a festival in Italy] this summer.
She will be accompanied by her family and Oliver, who is designing the sets and singing in the production.
“Of course, I love what I do,” he says.
If elite music teachers are this protected, some may even traffic their students to more powerful elites in order to gain more favor.
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9902025? ago
Thank you. That's a great idea!