Police pulled ipod data in pimping probe

Street slang, rap lyrics under scrutiny in court

A 16-year-old girl accused of forcing other teens into prostitution slouched over in the prisoners’ box with her long dark hair covering her face as a photo of a double middlefinger salute pulled from her MacBook was shown in an Ottawa courtroom Tuesday.

The nails were manicured with soft pink polish and thick white dollar signs.

The girl, who cannot be named, is on trial with two other girls — age 16 and 17 — facing three dozen pimp-related charges.

The Crown alleges that the girls threatened and in some cases beat other girls between the ages of 13 and 18 to force them to pose for nude photographs. Three were allegedly taken to johns.

Ottawa Det. Michel Villeneuve described in court how he pulled data from the girl’s MacBook and iPod touch. He said he confirmed she used the two devices by matching her connection history to social media sites to specific locations in Ottawa via IP addresses.

An image of the girl, with pursed lips and wearing tight clothing, was also pulled off the computer.

Data pulled off the iPod revealed that the home-screen page was, at one point, a left hand holding what appears to be a gun. The search history includes the rapper Iceburg Tony.

Villeneuve did not detail the contents of texts, tweets, notes and calendar items from the iPod touch. His testimony will continue Wednesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the online user-generated Urban Dictionary was dissected after an Ottawa detective testified she used the website to inform her knowledge of street slang.

Defence lawyer Trevor Brown argued “there’s nothing scientific” about the online definitions submitted by users such as SirMonkey-butt10. “It’s a little bit different than Webster’s or Oxford,” Brown said.

Det. Carolyn Botting agreed but emphasized that she relied more on personal experience and consultations with the police guns and gangs unit to analyze the Facebook pages and Twitter posts said to belong to the accused teen pimps.

“I don’t rely on it as much as you think or are suggesting,” she said.

Botting testified she was familiar with street slang because of her history as a youth investigator but that she has never testified as an expert.

She defined “burner” as a gun. Brown pointed out that the secondmost popular definition on Urban Dictionary for “burner” is for a throwaway prepaid cellphone.

“Makes sense but I hadn’t heard it,” Botting said.

Botting explained that the term “shawty” is more widely used now than it was when she first became familiar with its definition as a girl or woman. While it used to be more related to prostitution and gang lifestyle, it’s now used in popular culture, she said.

Brown pointed out that some of the social media posts attributed to the accused are simply song lyrics.

“I got alotta spots like a leopard / One to trap in, one to have sex in / One to stack in, one to get dressed in,” posted on a Twitter account linked to one of the girls is part of the song Feeling You by rapper 2 Chainz.

“I would say it’s lyrics that they related to,” Botting said.