York Region Pimps

She's a pitiful sight.

At one point likely a beautiful young woman, she is now frightfully thin after years of abuse in a unforgiving industry.

The only part of her body that remains plentiful are her breasts.

Two of her front teeth are missing, one on top, another on the bottom.

‘I’ve had men strangle me and beat me. Another had tools in his car to murder me. I may have been making $2,500 a week, but it was not a glamorous lifestyle.’ While repeatedly explaining to York Regional Police’s vice squad officers neither she nor her “boyfriend” have done anything wrong and don’t deserve their attention, the woman, in her late 20s, repeatedly scratches her right arm.

Minutes earlier, the team of seven officers was forced to abandon a stakeout outside a pimp and crack dealer’s Etobicoke home to respond to the Markham hotel at which the alleged prostitute was working.

When they arrived, it was all but crawling with suspected prostitutes. Three lounge in the restaurant, presumably waiting for their next customers while watching police interact with the woman.

Police were called after she told the front desk clerk her pimp struck her. Yet when questioned by police, she denies everything.

On this night, the unit invited a Metroland Media Group reporter to accompany them as they battle to curb the sex trade in York Region.

According to lead Det. Thai Truong, prostitutes ranging in age from 14-23 are trading money for sex out of most hotels in the region, serving between two and seven men each night.

For this, they are paid $80-$120 for a half-hour session and $120-$200 for a full hour.

The discrepancy in price is simple: the prettier you are, the more money you make.

Depending on the pimp involved, the women may go home with half the money they earn or nothing, with their pimps taking care of any costs.

The vice squad is a varied group comprised of officers with a common distaste of the sex trade. The investigators bring a range of talents, from sensitive facilitators, who work one-on-one with women involved in the trade, to hard-nosed investigators.

The bulk of the vice squad’s duties involve finding those women coerced to sell their bodies and trying to extract them from prostitution, while simultaneously working to put those who victimize them behind bars.

Men who pay for sex with the girls, especially the under-age ones, are also charged.

It’s a far cry from what police service used to do — target and arrest the prostitutes.

In 2008, tactics changed. Now prostitutes are considered victims and their pimps the enemy, which has resulted in more than 400 arrests in the past four years.

Yet more women are posting explicit ads on escort websites, such as backpage.com, offering their services.

On this Thursday night, 80 different women post ads about their availability in York Region alone, often at local hotels.

How many of those are being coerced into it?

Det. Truong refuses to offer a number, but admits it’s very rare to find a prostitute working independently.

“A huge percentage of the younger ones are being coerced,” he says. “I have seen girls who say they have had oral sex with over 4,000 men. I don’t care who you are, no girl wants to do that.”

Pimping, too, appears to be on the rise and the reason for that is simple: easy money.

“If you sell an ounce of coke, to sell more, dealers have to get more coke and sell it again. There are huge risks with each step involved,” Det. Truong says earlier in the night as his unmarked police vehicle speeds across Hwy. 407 en route to the Markham call. “With a girl, she’s yours to exploit constantly (and) you can make more money than with drugs.”

Yet even when police locate a suspect pimp, they can’t make an arrest until a prostitute “flips” and gives him up.

Criminals, from garden variety thugs to members of street gangs, are increasingly engaging in pimping, Det. Truong says.

Police are having trouble controlling the surge, in part due to regular delays between the time of arrest and prosecution.

If police manage to flip a prostitute after months — sometimes years — of communication, the squad still faces an uphill battle prosecuting her pimp.

“If there is a trial, it could come a year after the fact, at which point their lives could have changed (and) they could be out of the game,” Det. Truong says. “Think about what they have to face once they get there from the defence — no girl wants to be called a prostitute in court. When the time comes to testify, a lot of girls refuse and the whole (case) falls apart.”

However, Det. Truong doesn’t expect this to happen in three cases now before the courts, including a man and woman charged with running a juvenile prostitution ring involving girls between the ages of 13-17.

Another case relates to a 21-year-old woman, who was allegedly forced to strip, have sex with men and hand over all her money. Vaughan resident Stefan Ascenzi, also known as rapper Romeo, his mother, Lisa Ascenzi, and his girlfriend, Venessa Cachia, face charges in that case. Their trial starts July 3.

In the third case, a Toronto pharmacist is accused of drugging, abusing and filming the assaults of more than 20 prostitutes.

Bridget Perrier was a prostitute for a decade, beginning at age 12, and has seen it all, from abusive johns and pimps to extreme violence.

“I’ve had men strangle me and beat me. Another had tools in his car to murder me,” she says. “I may have been making $2,500 a week, but it was not a glamorous lifestyle.”

She remembers when police would harass prostitutes and distinctly recalls when that strategy changed.

“Instead of running our names through the system, they would talk to us or comment on my new shoes. I think they began to see that behind the act, there was a real human being; a victim,” she says. “It went a long way toward breaking down the distrust I had of police since a very early age.”

Despite breaking away from the lifestyle and having since given birth to four children, Ms Perrier still suffers emotional scars that force her to sleep with the lights on at night.

Now a counsellor with the advocacy group Sex Trade 101, which trains police forces and speaks to students, Ms Perrier says Det. Truong and his officers have gone above and beyond, building a rapport with victims on a daily basis.

“They are building trust and the way they are getting to the prostitutes is proper,” she adds.

To meet these girls, Det. Truong and his team spend much of their time scanning escort websites to find under-age escorts or those being controlled.

Although meeting the women often only requires a phone call, maintaining contact and conducting investigations is difficult, in part, because of a prostitute’s transient nature.

“For a couple of nights, they could be in Markham, then in Niagara. It’s province-to-province and city-to-city,” Det. Truong says. “They know it causes problems for law enforcement. If there’s heat on them, they can just move to another place.”

Despite the seemingly never-ending ads, the team is relentless in its effort to communicate with those it believes to be in the game against their will, constantly calling and requesting meetings.

Once they set up a date, posing as johns, they try to ingratiate themselves with the girls to encourage them to give up their pimps, to whom they usually refer as their boyfriends.

“The younger the girls are, the easier they are to manipulate. That’s why there are so many juveniles,” he says. “But trust me, it’s hard trying to tell a 15-year-old that her ‘boyfriend’ doesn’t love her. That’s why the girls don’t come forward, because they think that’s their boyfriend.”

It’s due to this ploy the unit’s first encounter with women is almost always unsuccessful, however a seed has been planted.

It often takes what officers call an “outcry point”, often a beating by their pimp that pushes them over the edge.

Despite significant success by vice officers, a huge percentage of women stay in the game, kept in line by their pimps and other prostitutes who move into positions of power by being reliable and keeping other girls in line.

It’s 2 a.m. and there is still lots of work to do. Members of the vice unit gather at a Tim Hortons parking lot to plan strategy for the rest of the shift. They’re back online, scrolling through escorts ads, searching for more victims.

During his time in vice, Det. Truong has seen and heard horrible details of what life is like for the women working in the sex trade, including having beer bottles being broken over heads, women being forced to bathe in floor cleaner and flesh mutilated. These tragic tales keep him motivated to keep up the work.

In any given month, vice officers may work 200 hours of overtime, much of it unpaid, on top of their 200 regular hours.

And all for what?

No matter how hard it may be, it’s all about saving the next victim, Det. Truong says.

“It’s out of control. Sometimes it seems like you’re never going to win, but if you change one life, it’s worth it,” he says.

Source: http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/3836327-york-cops-target-pimps-in-war-on-sex-trade/

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