Sentencing begins for B.C. woman guilty of violent human sex trafficking

NEW WESTMINSTER — A Crown attorney says prosecutors want a 13-year prison sentence for Jennifer Stephens, a B.C. woman who pleaded guilty to 17 criminal charges related to sex trafficking of a minor, and several counts of assault.

Prosecutor Catherine Rose read out an agreed statement of facts at a sentencing hearing in a New Westminster court, outlining the woman’s violent, drug-fuelled abuse of sex workers, including a 13-year-old girl.

Stephens pleaded guilty in January last year to charges, including assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement, sexual assault with a weapon and several other offences related to sex trafficking of a person under 18.

Police in Langley, B.C., started investigating the case in February 2023, beginning with a phone number that was linked to a 13-year-old girl who had been trafficked in Alberta and Kelowna, B.C.