By: Richard L. Smith
A Camden County registered sex offender appeared in federal court Tuesday on multiple charges of sex trafficking minors, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger reported.
Federal officials said Semaj A. Gilmore, 32, is charged by superseding indictment with three counts of sex trafficking of a minor and three counts of committing a sex offense as a registered sex offender.
He is scheduled to appear in Camden federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Skahill. Gilmore has been detained since initially being charged with a criminal complaint in April 2021.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
In April 2021, investigators learned that a missing juvenile from Pennsylvania was being advertised for sexually illicit activities on a website that is often used for advertising acts of prostitution.
On April 13, 2021, an undercover agent contacted a phone number associated with the advertisement.
The undercover agent and the user of the phone number, later revealed to be Gilmore, exchanged a series of messages that ultimately led to the undercover agent meeting the victim in a motel room in or around Mount Laurel, purportedly to engage in sexual activities in exchange for cash.
Gilmore instructed the undercover agent to “get condoms” and to confirm that he was not “a cop.”
When uniformed officers entered the motel room, Gilmore, who had been waiting in a car in the adjacent parking lot, fled.
Officers stopped Gilmore’s car and recovered the phone used to arrange the meeting between the victim and the undercover agent.
From September 2020 to April 2021, Gilmore trafficked two other victims to engage in commercial sex acts in addition to the victim he advertised on April 13, 2021.
During that time period, Gilmore had been required to register as a sex offender as a result of a prior conviction.
Each count of sex trafficking of a minor is punishable by a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison, a maximum of life in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Each count of committing a sex offense as a registered sex offender is punishable by a mandatory penalty of 10 years in prison, which must run consecutively to any other term of imprisonment, and a fine of up to $250,000.