Copyright Mechanicsburg Patriot News
An appeals court has upheld a decision to impose stricter release conditions for a man who served a 10-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking in his “suburban brothel” set up in his Dauphin County home. Coy Christopher Klinger, 48, of Lower Paxton Township, asked the Third Circuit of Appeals to overturn a federal judge’s order that he not have contact with minors, only use the internet for “essential” tasks and not view online pornography. But the Third Circuit of Appeals shot down his request last week in an opinion that supported further restricting his conditions of release until 2028, when he’s scheduled to be free from the federal probation office. Klinger ran a prostitution ring in 2014 out of his Lower Paxton Township home and recruited children using social media, prosecutors said. They said he tried to solicit at least six minors into the scheme. He exploited a 17-year-old girl for profit, who was sexually abused on three separate days by nine of his “clients.” In 2015 District Judge John E. Jones III sentenced Klinger to 10 years in federal prison and 5 years of supervised release paired with mandatory sex offender treatment. District Judge Christopher Connor imposed the additional conditions in November 2024 following testimony from Klinger’s treatment team at Commonwealth Clinical Group arguing Klinger wasn’t making progress in his recovery, was manipulating staff, resisting treatment recommendations and avoiding accountability. They gave him a polygraph test that showed “significant emotional disturbance” when asked if he knowingly exploited children as prostitutes. Klinger was using the internet for online dating and soliciting casual sex. He also looked up pornography on the website “Quora” and didn’t disclose that during group therapy, his therapists told the federal probation office. He also engaged in a casual sexual relationship with a woman who has a 12-year-old daughter, the probation office said. “Modifying his conditions as request(ed) will provide Mr. Klinger with structure and accountability to address his specific criminogenic needs, and protect the public,” the probation office said at the time. But Klinger appealed, arguing the conditions were too overbroad and were steeped in admissions prosecutors said he made, which he denied. At his guilty plea in 2015, Klinger denied intentionally sex trafficking minors for his personal profit. “This was not a business aimed at bringing minors in,” Lori Ulrich, Klinger’s federal public defender, said at the time. She said it was unfortunate minors got involved and that “Mr. Klinger was absolutely wrong” in creating the brothel. “I was extremely naive and stupid,” Klinger said as he pleaded guilty. “I went very much out of character by going down this road...And it completely blew up in my face.” While prosecutors argued he tried to solicit at least six minors into his suburban brothel, he only admitted to trafficking “at least one” child during his guilty plea. Prosecutors said he exploited a 17-year-old girl on three separate days for nine of his “clients”. Thousands of pages of messages from Klinger’s Facebook page showed he chatted online with several girls who told him they were minors. In response, Klinger offered them $500 to $1,500 a day working for him in the “adult arena.” Klinger thought he would only get charged with a misdemeanor under the Pennsylvania law, so he decided the benefits of the scheme outweighed the risk, he told federal agents following his arrest. .
