Nineteen people have been charged with sex trafficking girls and young women, in part through a residential treatment center in Westchester County, federal authorities said.

The defendants are accused of recruiting at least 15 minor girls in the child welfare system, including at least nine girls at Hawthorne Cedar Knolls in Mount Pleasant, for prostitution.

"Children in the child welfare system are among the most vulnerable in our society," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement. "The defendants and their conspirators callously recruited girls as young as 13 from a residential treatment facility for at-risk youth then sexually trafficked and prostituted them for financial profit."

The Hawthorne Cedar Knolls residential treatment center for troubled youths was closed this year by its operator, the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, after years of controversy. The agency still runs a special needs school and two therapeutic residences for adolescents and young adults.

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A spokeswoman for the Jewish Board declined to discuss details of the sex trafficking case.

“We are fully cooperating with the United States Attorney’s investigation and are very grateful for their attention to this matter,” the spokeswoman said in an email.

Monica Mahaffey, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Children and Family Services which oversees residential treatment centers, said that the closure of the Hawthorne Cedar Knolls center will be completed Tuesday when the final six children will be transferred to a facility in New York City.

She did not address the sex trafficking case and said the decision to force the Jewish Board to close Hawthorne Cedar Knolls was a result of continuing incidents relating to the "disturbing issue" of youth leaving the campus without permission.

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Some of the girls who were recruited were as young as 13 years old, officials said. At least four of the girls were taken to the Bronx and Manhattan to work as prostitutes, according to the indictments.

Eight of the 19 defendants were arrested on Wednesday, two are in state custody on unrelated charges, eight other defendants were previously charged, and one is at large.

The charges are part of eight separate indictments spanning crimes committed between 2010 and 2018, officials said.

All 19 defendants are from New York City. None of them worked at the Westchester facility, officials said.

Eleven of them appeared in federal court on Wednesday to face charges in this case for the first time, officials said — Bronx residents Ruben Morciglio, Cimmie Wright and Steven Lesane; Brooklyn residents Saeed Norris, Carlton Vanier, Lloyd Kidd, Andrienne Roberts, Christopher Bullock and Dariel Braham; and Queens residents Luidi Benjamin and Lawrence Walsh.

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Eight of them — Bronx residents Sean Merchant, Reuben Sands, Martique McGriff, Jermaine Myrie; and Brooklyn residents Hubert Dupigny, Hensley Dupigny, Nazeer Vickers and Jabari Kennedy - were charged with past summer, although at the time there was no reference to the residential treatment center.

The charges include conspiracy to commit sex trafficking; sex trafficking of a minor; and sex trafficking by force, threats of force, fraud and coercion. Each defendant faces a minimum of 10 or 15 years in prison up to life in prison.

Lawyers for the defendants could not be reached on Thursday. In a letter seeking bail for Hubert Dupigny last month, defense lawyer, Aaron Mysliwiec, said his client "adamantly denies" his guilt, specifically that he ever "forced, threatened, coerced, or fraudulently caused anyone to engage in a commercial sex act."

Prosecutors responded that there was ample evidence that both Hubert Dupigney and his brother Hensley should remain in custody. They cited text messages purportedly from Hensley Dupigney that discussed "posting," or advertising a victim for participation in prostitution, on "bp", a reference to the website Backpage.com. The messages also showed Dupigney was monitoring how much money was earned from those "posts."

They also cited phone calls Hubert Dupigney made from jail in 2017, including one with his brother in which they discuss a prostitute named "Shorty" and Hubert Dupigney becomes upset when he learned that she had not been working in recent days.

At least four of the defendants, Merchant, Vickers, Merciglio and Kennedy, have served time in state prison, although none for sex trafficking or sex-related charges.

Officials said anyone who may have been a victim of a similar crime, or who has information about the exploitation of children, can call the FBI at 212-384-1000.

Staff writer Jorge Fitz-Gibbon contributed to this report.

Twitter: @MattSpillane

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