A Crown prosecutor has asked a B.C. Supreme Court justice to lock up a violent pimp for 17 more years.
Crown counsel Kristin Bryson asked Justice Catherine Bruce to consider the lengthy prison term for Reza Moazami, 31, who preyed on teenage girls in a prostitution ring he ran across the Lower Mainland, including on the North Shore.
Moazami was convicted a year ago of 30 charges, including sexual interference, sexual assault and living off the avails of prostitution.
He is also the first person in B.C. to be convicted of human trafficking and has been in jail since his arrest more than three years ago.
Bryson asked for back-to-back sentences for Moazami’s crimes, saying “crime must not get cheaper by the dozen.”
She noted that in the past 10 years, the Criminal Code has been changed to bring in tougher sentences for sexual crimes against children, which should mean a stiffer sentence for Moazami.
Moazami’s victims – who testified during a lengthy trial – were between 14 and 19 when they worked for him as prostitutes at a series of condos and hotel rooms between 2009 and 2011.
As their pimp, Moazami used both psychological and physical threats to force the girls to work for him.
He took their photos to post on websites advertising sexual services, took calls to arrange their clients, pocketed the money and gave the teens drugs to keep them dependent on him.
Moazami forced some of the girls to have sex with up to 10 men or more in a day.
At least three of the girls Moazami forced into prostitution were either from the North Shore or worked out of North Vancouver hotels.
One girl was 14 when she got a call to help a friend who was at a North Vancouver hotel.
When she got there, however, Moazami met her and told her she would have to work for him as a prostitute. She did that for several months, seeing customers Moazami arranged either at the hotel or at homes in North Vancouver. The girl said Moazami took all the money she made, kept her high on drugs and didn’t let her out of the hotel room except to meet clients.
She described working for him as “hell.”
Another girl who had a troubled background in West Vancouver and was in foster care described how Moazami lured her into prostitution with promises of money and a glamorous lifestyle.
In court this week, defence lawyer Jeremy Fung asked the judge to reconsider her decision on the charges of living off the avails of prostitution, noting that law has since been struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.
But Bruce disagreed, saying the law was valid at the time of Moazami’s conviction.
The sentencing hearing ground to a halt on Tuesday, however, after Moazami fired his lawyers before they could present legal submissions to the judge.
The sentencing hearing has now been adjourned until the end of October.
