Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg today announced the guilty plea of MICHAEL OLSON, 56, to ten counts arising out of his criminal scheme to target teenage girls for sex by offering them money and gifts on social media platforms before drugging, raping and filming at least one such teenager. The guilty plea includes behavior for which OLSON was initially indicted in June 2023 after he was found to have targeted a 14-year-old girl on Instagram and gave her drugs and raped her in hotel rooms in Queens and Manhattan on a weekly basis. OLSON additionally pleaded guilty pursuant to a superseding indictment for conduct including creating child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”), drugging a second child, soliciting multiple other children, and continuing to engage in a course of conduct against some of these children even after OLSON was initially arrested in May 2023.

OLSON pleaded guilty to Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance to a Child, Rape in the Second Degree, Criminal Sexual Act in the Second Degree, Facilitating a Sex Offense with a Controlled Substance, Aggravated Patronizing a Minor of Prostitution, Use of a Child in a Sexual Performance as a Sexually Motivated Felony, and multiple counts of Endangering the Welfare of a Child. He is expected to be sentenced on February 5, 2025 to the court’s promised sentence of 16 years in state prison.

“Michael Olson schemed to target, recruit, manipulate, and sexually assault young girls, and raped at least one child in Manhattan on a weekly basis,” said District Attorney Bragg. “His horrendous conduct was the very definition of predatory, and I thank my office’s Human Trafficking Unit for putting a stop to it.”

Initial Indictment

According to court documents and statements made on the record in court, in December 2022, OLSON found the 14-year-old girl’s Instagram profile and responded to a post that she made about clothes being too expensive. He sent her a gift card for clothing and began to pay her to spend time with him. Over the next six months, OLSON repeatedly raped the child, paying her approximately $700 a week to engage in sexual conduct in hotel rooms in Queens and Manhattan. He took the child to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Miami by purchasing her airfare with her first name and his last name in order to portray her as his daughter.

On May 26, 2023, EMS technicians responded after the child began overdosing in a Manhattan hotel room. The technicians found the girl and OLSON with numerous narcotics present, including ketamine, cocaine, and Xanax. The girl was transported to the hospital – where she recovered – and OLSON was arrested.

Superseding Indictment

Following OLSON’s arrest and arraignment on the initial indictment, the D.A.’s Human Trafficking Unit, in conjunction with the NYPD Human Trafficking Detective Squad, continued investigating and secured a superseding indictment that included four additional victims, all of whom were 15-years-old or younger. OLSON was charged with creating eighteen distinct pieces of child sexual abuse material in Manhattan, as well as possessing a total of thirty-two different child sexual abuse materials. The conduct included an additional drug sale to a different child, soliciting multiple other children, and continuing to engage in a course of conduct against some of these children even after OLSON was arraigned in Criminal Court and placed on electronic monitoring.

Assistant D.A. John Fuller is handling the prosecution of this case under the supervision of Assistant D.A.s Courtney Razner (Deputy Chief of the Human Trafficking Unit) and Jonathon Junig (Chief of the Human Trafficking Unit), and Executive Assistant D.A. Justin McNabney (Chief of the Special Victims Division). Investigative Analysts Mary LeSeur, Amira Mahmoud, Alexa Underwood and Jacqueline Karp assisted with the investigation. Human Trafficking Clinical Director Melissa Martinez-Valdes provided valuable assistance.

D.A. Bragg thanked the New York City Police Department’s Human Trafficking Squad, particularly Detectives Joseph Azevedo and Latasha Carter, as well as the Midtown South Precinct.

MICHAEL OLSON

New York, NY

Convicted:

• Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance to a Child, a class B felony, 1 count
• Use of a Child in a Sexual Performance as a Sexually Motivated Felony, a class C felony, 1 count
• Rape in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 1 count
• Criminal Sexual Act in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 1 count
• Facilitating a Sex Offense with a Controlled Substance, a class D felony, 1 count
• Aggravated Patronizing a Minor for Prostitution in the Second Degree, a class D felony, 1 count
• Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a class A misdemeanor, 4 counts

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