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

The B.C. Supreme Court building seen with plywood on it in New Westminster, B.C., on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ashley Joannou

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.

• Read more: B.C. woman pleads guilty to multiple charges of human trafficking after 2023 arrest

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.

The agreed statement says services from the girl had been advertised on LeoList, an online escort platform.

It says photographs on the website led police to a Langley hotel where the victims lived and worked, and officers later discovered videos on a phone showing Stephens and her associates doling out violent beatings and at least one sexual assault.

The document says Stephens boasted about having a Snapchat account with “500 clients,” a list she said she refused to sell to other “pimps.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 8, 2026.