Daily BrewOttawa teen girl who led underage prostitution ring convicted of 30 charges
The last of three Ottawa teenage girls who ran an underage prostitution ring was convicted Wednesday of 30 charges.
The now-17-year-old girl, arrested with two others in June 2012, cried as Justice Diane Lahaie found her guilty of all but three charges. They included procurement for the purpose of prostitution, human trafficking, making child pornography, sexual assault, child luring, uttering threats and unlawful confinement, CBC News reported.
The teen, who can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was the ringleader among the three girls, who were aged 15 and 16 at the time of their arrest.
The two others pleaded guilty last year midway through their trials. One received the maximum allowable sentence of three years, less credit for time served, while the other has not been sentenced pending a psychiatric report, the Ottawa Citizen noted.
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The ringleader's long trial revealed how the three teenage pimps coerced other girls, aged 13 to 17, into becoming prostitutes.
The victims were lured through Facebook and other social media to come to a south-end Ottawa housing complex to hang out. The girls, some drugged, were then taken elsewhere to meet clients.
The girls were beaten, confined and forced to hand over their earnings, court was told. Some were stripped and photographed nude, with photos texted to clients. One was shot naked in a bathtub, too drunk to move, CBC News said.
What the judge called a "vile enterprise," while sentencing one of the other teens last week was exposed when a mother called police after her 13-year-old daughter came home in tears after what the mother thought was a sleepover with a friend.
[ Related: Two accused in teen prostitution trial won't take stand ]
One victim, also 13 at the time, testified about being forced to have oral sex with a 40-year-old john in his car.
One of the johns has been charged with sexual assault.
In her closing argument, Crown prosecutor Fara Rupert said the ringleader was "guided by greed, without any regard for the damage that she inflicted physically and emotionally,” upon a “population of vulnerable girls," Metro News Ottawa reported.
The defence called no witnesses in the trial and submitted written closing arguments.
The teen will be sentenced at a later date.
