Warning: this story contains disturbing details A woman has been sentenced to 13 years prison, less time already served, in a horrific sex trafficking case. Jennifer Stephens, 31, had earlier pleaded guilty to a string of charges involving several victims. “The offence relating to the vulnerable victims included procuring for the purposes of exploitation and advertising sexual services, and another person was the subject of a sexual assault with a firearm,” explained prosecutor James Patterson. The court heard one of the victims was only 13 years old, and that Stephens knew the child had been previously trafficked in Alberta. CTV News spoke to one of the adult victims, whose identity is protected by a court ban. The woman, who wept at times as the judge read his decision, said outside court that the sentence left her feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “I don’t have to constantly come back and relive it,” she explained, adding that she’s done her best to deal with what happened, but it’s hard to forget. “There’s days when I have really bad anxiety, my PTSD comes back,” she said. She described Stephens as someone who had shown no remorse. “She’s just a sad excuse for a human being,” the woman said. Stephens’ guilty plea meant the victims didn’t have to testify at a trial, and that was a mitigating factor in sentencing. “That’s countered with the fact that she inflicted a lot of brutality on these individuals, as well as perpetrated extensive fraud on one of the victims,” said prosecutor Catherine Rose. Much of that brutality was inflicted on the woman CTV News spoke to. “It’s heartbreaking to know that … videos that I’ve been assaulted in, like I’ve pretty much almost died in, are surfacing and circulating the internet and will always be on the internet,” she said. Stephens was one of those arrested at a Langley hotel in March of 2023 when a bloodied woman ran to a gas station nearby for help. But even after being charged, the court heard, Stephens continued to try and recruit vulnerable women to work for her. She had boasted of a client list of 500 people. “I just hope she gets the help she needs,” said one of her victims. Rose said outside court that she had never previously been involved in a case like this, adding: “I think there is a lot of development happening in B.C. in terms of resources that police and the Crown are putting into human trafficking investigation, so we’ll likely see more coming forward in the future.”
