December 8, 2010
Jovan Demont Stewart, 31, had asked U.S. District Judge Rudy Lozano for leniency, saying he was afraid of Justin Cephus, who also received a life sentence Monday for his role in the case.
Lozano didn't buy it, though, saying Stewart had more than enough options to leave Cephus' Hammond house, from which the prostitution ring was run.
"It lasted for far, far too long, and there were far, far too many victims," Lozano told Stewart before reading the sentence.
Cephus and Stewart were convicted in November 2009 on numerous charges of pimping women, including girls as young as 16. A federal indictment claimed the men drugged the women and beat them to make sure they kept having sex with them and the clients. Some of the women were recruited by claims they would work as models.
Stewart, who was visibly upset during the hearing in the U.S. District Court in Hammond, said he never beat the women, however, and the women were always free to leave. Prosecutors had claimed one 16-year-old girl had asked to go home her first night with them and didn't want to have sex with a client but Stewart told her he would leave her with the client if she didn't comply.
"He saw the blood, the black eyes, the swollen lips, the bruised legs," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Trumbull-Harris said. "He saw it all, day after day, month after month."
FBI Agent Carrie Landau testified Stewart continued to prostitute the women after Cephus was arrested for his part in the conspiracy and beat some of the women to make sure they didn't tell the truth to the police.
A brother of one of the victims, Shane K., testified that his sister, after her family had taken her from Cephus' home, told him Stewart and Cephus would have sex with the girls after the girls had passed out from drugs and alcohol.
Co-defendant Stanton Landry Cephus had his sentencing continued until Monday afternoon after defense attorney Arlington Foley asked the court for a reduction in his sentencing guidelines, arguing he had played a minimal role in the conspiracy.
Trumbull-Harris agreed Stanton Cephus, who is not known to have beaten any of the women, had a smaller role than Justin Cephus, who is his brother, or Stewart, but there were questions as to whether the guidelines would allow for the reduction.
Justin Cephus and Stewart recruited teenage girls by passing out business cards for Beautyful Entertainment at the River Oaks Mall in Calumet City, Ill.
Girls were told the business was modeling or "promotions," but the number on the business cards was the same as the one in a Yellow Pages listing for Beauty Escorts, an alleged call-girl service raided by Cook County Sheriff's Police and the FBI following a sting operation in Lansing, Ill.
Two other defendants -- Haneef Jackson-Bey and Delbert Patterson -- were already sentenced to 180 months and 57 months, respectively, after pleading guilty in the case.
The federal case was investigated by police in Hammond and Chicago and FBI in Merrillville and the FBI Chicago South Resident Agency.
http://www.post-trib.com/news/lake/2952514,new-pimps1208.article
