A New York City financier convicted of drugging and raping a teenage girl, creating child sex abuse material and a litany of other offenses committed against minors — including after his arrest — was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his depravity on Tuesday.
Michael Olson, 56, who pleaded guilty to a 10-count indictment laden with sex crimes against children in December also received 15 years post-release supervision by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ann Scherzer, saying she had “a strong responsibility to the community to make sure there is somebody watching Mr. Olson.”
Central to the case brought in June 2023 were allegations Olson targeted a 14-year-old girl online and then plied her with drugs every week while raping her in Queens and Manhattan hotel rooms.
He pleaded out late last year to rape, criminal sexual act, selling drugs to a minor, patronizing a minor for prostitution, and related offenses tied to his drugging of a second child, soliciting multiple other children for sexual abuse, creating 18 items of child sexual abuse material — and possessing 32 others — and related behavior.
“Michael Olson preyed on and abused five vulnerable children in less than six months,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “My Office’s Human Trafficking Unit was laser-focused on ensuring accountability in this case for the full scope of his horrific conduct.”
Olson’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he was relieved his client got less than 25 years, which prosecutors pushed for, and reasoned his behavior stemmed from his own childhood.
“It’s obviously an incredibly sad day for him and his family,” Lichtman told the Daily News. “Frankly, it’s a sad case all around, not only for Michael but for the victim as well. … It’s tragic and it really relates back to a very disturbing childhood he had, not that you can ever make any excuses.”
Olson targeted the 14-year-old he repeatedly abused through Instagram in December 2022, first commenting on a photo she posted on her page about clothes being too expensive, according to court records. He sent her a gift card and started offering her money for her company, and then began paying her $700 weekly to sleep with him at various hotels.
In addition to abusing the girl in New York, Olson flew her to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Miami — falsely including his last name on her booking details to make it look like she was his daughter. Prosecutors said his prime focus online was vulnerable Asian teenagers who shared posts about financial difficulties and self-harm.
Before his arrest, Olson, a father of one, worked at Dwight Mortgage Trust, a real estate-focused investment firm. The company fired him on the day he was indicted in May 2023.
The abuse came to light when the child overdosed in a Manhattan hotel room in May 2023 and responding medics discovered ketamine, cocaine, and Xanax on site. She recovered in the hospital and Olson was taken into custody, prosecutors said in court papers filed during the case.
A joint investigation into Olson by the Manhattan DA’s Human Trafficking Unit and the NYPD Human Trafficking Detective Squad turned up an additional four victims, all of them 15 years old or younger. The financier continued to abuse some of the children after he was arrested while out on electronic monitoring and $1 million bail.