Woman Pimped Teens for Crack

(Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania) A 40-year-old woman, Lisa Marie Cope of Brockton, appeared before Tamaqua District Judge Andrew Zelonis and was arraigned on multiple felonies for orchestrating a sex-for-drugs scheme involving two ninth-grade girls, ages 14 and 15. Judge Zelonis heard the girls testify that Lisa Cope prostituted them on more than twenty sex-for-drugs exchanges with at least six drug dealers between June 2004 and April 2005. The testimony was graphic and riveting.

"Never in all of my 17 years [as district judge] have I listened to testimony that was so disturbing," Zelonis said at the end of the hearing. "I'm not saying you are guilty, but you definitely need to go to trial."

According to investigators, Cope would arrange for the girls to have sex with the dealers for $20 to $50 worth of crack cocaine, then drive them to meet the dealers and wait as they had sex. At least six drug dealers were involved and the girls had sex with some of them on ten occasions.

The specific charges against Lisa Cope include sexual exploitation of children, prostitution, solicitation of minors to traffic drugs, unlawful contact with minors, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and reckless endangerment. She is in custody under $75,000 cash bail. No trial date was announced.