Pressure to sell sex relentless, teen says

‘I am a kid,’ she told girl facing charges

An Ottawa girl spent her 15th birthday trying to recruit an acquaintance on Facebook to “do sh-- and get paid,” court heard Monday at the human trafficking trial of three girls.

“So, you’re like a pimp,” the 14-year-old girl wrote back in January 2012.

“But I’m not rude about it — like I don’t treat you like sh-- and all that,” the online recruiter replied.

The so-called pimp and two slightly older girls are accused of threatening, beating and blackmailing other girls with nude photos to force them to sell their bodies and hand over the cash. Two of the accused were 15 and one was 16 when they were arrested in June 2012.

The teen who was offered work as a prostitute on Facebook testified Monday that she refused to take part in what was described to her as a safe and easy way to make money. But the pressure to sell her body — both in online messages and phone calls — continued, and she said she “almost went one time” when the alleged teen pimp told her a man with a foot fetish was willing to pay her $150 just to massage her feet.

“I didn’t. I’m happy I didn’t,” she said.

Three other girls were allegedly delivered to johns in the spring of 2012.

A 41-year-old john admitted in court earlier on Monday that he paid the teen leader of an “escort company” between $50 and $70 for sex with another teen girl.

Fazel Popal said he didn’t realize the 16-year-old girl whose time he had bought was “scared” until they were alone in the bedroom of a Donald Street apartment.

The girl, with blue and red streaks in her hair, begged him not to tell the three teen girls waiting outside the bedroom, including the one who took Popal’s money, that she refused to have sex with him.

“It’s going to cause me problems,” she said, according to Popal.

“Maybe my friends are going to beat me up,” he said she added. He said he accepted two minutes of oral sex from the girl because he was “confused.”

Popal testified that he did not know the girl he paid was only 15, or that the girl she delivered was only 16.

Facebook chat logs show the alleged pimp berated the 16-year-old girl for being a “kid.”

“That’s because I am a kid, lol (laugh out loud), and so are you,” she responded. The girl initially told Popal she was an experienced 19-year-old prostitute, he testified. “I’m happy to do this,” she said, according to Popal. Popal met the so-called leader of the “escort company” while driving a taxi, he said.

Despite his experience with the scared 16-year-old on May 30, 2012, he agreed to pay the same rate for time with a different girl just a few days later.

The girl, 13, was “shaking” when he picked her up in his car, he said. She handed him $20 in an effort to pay back what he had paid the alleged teen pimp for her time. “Please, I don’t want to do this,” she said, according to Popal.

The girl told him that she had been robbed of her purse and cellphone. He returned her to the ringleader at her request and did not engage in any sexual activities with her, he said.

The trial continues Tuesday.