Somebody's Daughter

by Jessome, Phonse;

  The bail hearings also changed Botterill’s mind about striking back at the pimps with federal Proceeds of Crime legislation, which allows courts to seize profits of criminal activity. Although the hardest working players were bringing in a stunning ten thousand dollars per week, and more, they wouldn’t have been able to make bail on their own even if it had been granted; the money was usually gone as soon as they got it—hotels, parties, full-price plane tickets, fine clothes; even a shabby apartment in Toronto or Montreal cost plenty. Then there were rental vehicles and room-service meals, and when you added it all up, the young men had little to show in the way of proceeds of crime. Botterill was shocked to find many of the pimps were in debt. It had become a tradition to take out a loan before buying a car, a tradition started years earlier by a savvy pimp. The scam was simple; the players used forged documents that showed a stable record of employment and then qualified for the loan. They even missed the odd payment, deliberately. The originator of the plan reasoned a couple of missed payments would show the police the pimps were not high rollers at all, if they were ever investigated or arrested. That part of the plan had no meaning to the newer breed of pimps who had, until the spring of 1993, no real fear of the police. They liked the idea of the loan and the missed payments though. If some bank wanted to front the money for a car then a pimp didn’t have to. The pimps flashed a lot of gold but most listed no fixed address on the arrest papers and Botterill wouldn’t know where to begin looking for any jewels other than those worn by the players when they were picked up. Tank, the pimp who had quickly predicted the just-turning Stacey Jackson’s predilection for The Game, expressed the players’ spending habits in one brief, colorful phrase: “Illegal money flows through your hands faster than a breeze through a small town.”

  The bail hearings were a success but the preliminary hearings Botterill faced were an even greater concern: not only would they determine whether trials would be held at all, but they would also represent a daunting challenge to his young witnesses. They wouldn’t all be called to testify, but they all had to be prepared for that possibility; and they, like he, also understood the significance of the message that strong, confident testimony would send to defense counsel—and to the still thriving players of The Game who would be watching with interest as court proceedings began.

  Botterill and the team had done their best to get their witnesses ready. All the girls had received extensive counseling and medical treatment, both to help them readjust to what many of them still called the “square” world, and for the more immediate prospect of extended appearances in court. The results of doctors’ examinations of girls who had been injured—the bruises and cuts notated, the scar tissue recorded—would provide physical evidence to corroborate the girls’ testimony. The support services would provide them with the emotional stability they needed to maintain their composure even under intense cross-examination. At least, the prosecutor hoped it would. He had noticed that some girls were responding to the pressure of the coming trials by succumbing to what some investigators dubbed “princess syndrome”—taking advantage of the spotlight being shone on them by calling their case officers, or Botterill, at any hour of the day or night, demanding to be taken our for a burger or coffee. Others were following Amber’s lead and working both sides of the fence; these worried Botterill more, since their return to prostitution could undermine their credibility on the stand. Worst of all, a few were stricken with “neon fever,” the call of the street was strong and they were changing their minds about testifying as the date of the first hearings approached. The prosecutor also found out from other team members, well connected to the police grapevine, that the jailed pimps had used their free time to chat about their courtroom strategy, some arguing they should smile endearingly but fixedly at their girls to elicit the “right” answers, others insisting that a threatening scowl would be much more effective. Either way, the pimps were arrogantly asserting their certainty that, face to face with “their” girls, they would somehow ensure through sheer force of will that none of them would testify. This infuriated Botterill, but it also concerned him deeply, although he hoped enough had been done to prove them wrong when the day of reckoning came.

  On that sunny April morning, as his first witness took the stand, Craig Botterill knew he had his work cut our for him. He was prepared for some nervousness from the fourteen-year-old, who had been abused by her pimp for almost a year before seeking help, and who remained in such fear of the man that she constantly expressed her dread of even looking at his face across the courtroom. Botterill had tried his best to reassure her in frequent visits to the Truro school, and gently explained to her that yes, that man did have to be in court, because it was his right to face his accuser. He knew she wanted to testify—she’d said many times that the pimp had to be kept away from girls like her—but he realized that courtroom anxiety would be inevitable.

  Still, he was unprepared for her reaction even to his routine questions—how old was she? Where did she go to school? The pretty young girl turned ghostly white and was barely able to raise her voice above a whisper. Hoping to reassure her, he got up from the Crown table and walked slowly across the courtroom to stand near his witness; smiling kindly and sympathetically, he asked her to tell the judge how she had become a prostitute. She visibly relaxed as she talked about her experience, but the farther along she got in her account, the more tense the prosecutor became. He knew he would soon have to ask the crucial question, and his witness, disturbingly, was still avoiding eye contact with the accused. Finally he could wait no longer; she was finished answering his question. He drew a deep breath and began: “Tell me; the man you are talking about—the man you say did all of these things to you—is he here in the courtroom today?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was strained and nervous.

  “Can you point this man out for the court?” Craig Botterill turned away from the witness stand and walked back towards his table, every muscle in his body contracting as he willed her to respond. When she did, all the anxiety had left her voice.

  “That’s him, right there.” Botterill didn’t have to turn around to know she had raised her hand and pointed at the accused. Instead, he looked at the man who had been leaning back comfortably in his chair, his legs sprawled under the defense table, an arrogant smile on his face as he stared at his former prostitute. Now he was sitting up straight; the smile was gone, replaced by shock, then fear.

  The pimp was ordered to stand trial on all the charges the task force had brought against him. When it was all over, Botterill hugged his witness: “I’m proud of you!” he said, and she beamed in delighted relief.

  The scene played itself out again and again in the weeks that followed, and the Crown attorney savoured each and every hearing for that moment of truth, when a teenage girl would face down her pimp and, pointing her finger at him, transform his bully’s grin to a coward’s terror.

  Part Six: Crime, Punishment, and an Uncertain Future

  The courage of the teenagers who resisted their pimps’ arrogant attempts to undermine their confidence during preliminary hearings had its effect on the street, as the players still in The Game talked worriedly about that “fuckin’ task force” and its efforts to spoil their lucrative business. They showed no sign of cutting back on their efforts to recruit new girls to saunter down Hollis several times a night, or collect cash from prostitutes on the stroll. The number of statements from the girls was declining by the summer of 1993 simply because the task force had reached so many of the young girls on the street that there were fewer left to make statements. The girls left in The Game remained steadfastly loyal to, or frightened of, their pimps. That did not deter the officers from going after the pimps with a classic procedure: the slow, tedious, and highly effective process of surveillance. For more than a week, they set up hidden video equipment and cameras, and just sat there, night after night, watching the stroll. They soon focused in on a particular man who stopped by to pick up money from
his prostitute after every date; hundreds of photographs and hours of video tape were amassed, along with meticulously detailed log-book entries on his comings and goings. Finally, Craig Botterill gave the surveillance team the go-ahead, and the pimp was arrested, charged with living on the avails of prostitution, and eventually sentenced to more than two years in prison.

  The atmosphere on the Hollis stroll was transformed almost overnight, as the pimps—almost to a man—stopped collecting money during the working night. Many even avoided driving near the stroll. Their activity didn’t cease entirely; however, underage girls continued to line the stroll, though fewer than ever before. And, for the first time, they had the freedom to respond to task force officers’ questions without facing a punishment from their pimps. Hollis Street was still the territory of the prostitutes, but now it was also task force territory.

  There was another change in the attitude of the Nova Scotia pimps by the summer of 1993. Finally, after months of task force work, the officers began to sense fear in these kings of the street. The fear was not so much exhibited on the street as it was in the courtroom. Craig Botterill who had so much enjoyed watching the change in demeanor when a cocky pimp saw his girl identify him in court would lose out on enjoying that moment again. Many, by far most, of the pimps who had gone through the preliminary hearing stage of the court process had begun to have second thoughts about their prospects before a jury. Craig Botterill’s phone began ringing, the way it had in the early days of Operation Hectic. This time it was not task force officers looking for advice, or the young girls at Sullivan House looking for encouragement; it was a host of defense attorneys looking for deals. At the Halifax County Correction Centre, the arrogant self-confident manipulators were looking for a way to manipulate the system. The pimps were ready to plead guilty in the hope of receiving a shorter sentence, or in some cases to plead guilty to one charge in the hope Botterill would agree to drop another. The sentences some pimps settled for were in no way lenient; task force cases processed through the courts ran from two years to seven. Most pimps found themselves serving three to five years in a federal prison. The pimps were found guilty, or pleaded guilty, to a host of charges. The most common charges were living on the avails of prostitution, exercising control for the purpose of prostitution, living on the avails of a person under the age of eighteen years, and procuring or attempting to procure a person to become a prostitute. Those charges fall under section 212 (1) and section 121 (2) of the Criminal Code of Canada, and the basis for laying them became as familiar to every member of the task force as they were to Craig Botterill.

  The almost daily procession of young men out of the courtroom and into prison cells also carried tragic consequences for the families of these North Preston residents who brought dishonor to their communities. North Preston was dubbed “the pimping capital of Canada” in one nationally published media account. The singers, the soldiers, and other North Preston residents who achieved success nationally and internationally never received the kind of attention given the few men who chose to become pimps. The negative image created by the arrests and the constant reminder that those arrested were from North Preston had a lasting impact on that community. The hardworking residents of North Preston could not help noticing the exclusively negative attention their community was receiving; the real attention it had needed for so long was still lacking. Millions of dollars had been committed to protecting young women from the violence of The Game. The money was being spent on the task force, the safe house, the courts, and the follow up support aimed at keeping the girls off the streets after they had testified. In North Preston, community-based programs had been designed to help combat the charismatic lure of the pimps and keep young men from choosing pimping over education and honest work. Those church- and school-based programs were necessary and effective; they did not, however, have the benefit of such financial largess. Even today some in the community do not trust reporters who they feel are at least partially to blame for the negative image.

  North Preston is a forgiving community, and its church leaders continue to reach out to those who were arrested and jailed. In 1995, several pimps incarcerated at The Spring Hill Penitentiary formed a small chorale and were given moral as well as spiritual support from the congregation of their church back home. A prison ministry was established linking the inmates with their home. Bruce Johnson, an active member of the North Preston community, believes even the most violent and hardened pimps would be welcomed home if they decided to give up The Game after serving jail terms. “There would be those who would be angry … for what it did to the community.” Johnson says that anger would pass and the pimps would again be members of the greater North Preston community if they really did want to start over. He is certain many do, and will.

  Not all of the cases were dealt with quickly or easily because not all of the pimps were willing to enter guilty pleas. The first man to try to beat the charges, and the system, was Jeremy MacDonald, “Jay,” who had been Amber’s pimp.

  As she had feared, Amber Borowski lost her fight for custody of her daughter, who was placed in the care of the province’s department of community services. Rather than drive her back onto the street, the loss reinforced Amber’s determination to start a new life—and to see her former pimp incarcerated for his violence towards her. If Jay wanted a fight in court, Amber would deliver it.

  His version of events was that he had arrived home to find Amber unconscious on the living-room floor; aware that she had a drug problem, he testified, it seemed logical to assume she had suffered an overdose—plunging her into a full tub was his attempt to revive her.

  The upstairs tenant who had heard MacDonald shouting about money didn’t quite corroborate the pimp’s testimony. The neighbor had gone to police the morning after the incident, following a conversation with another tenant who’d seen Amber leave the building earlier, her eye badly bruised. His account of what he’d heard matched Amber’s exactly, and this, along with the medical evidence of bruising on Amber’s shoulders and side when she arrived at the task force office, and the young woman’s convincing testimony, was more than enough to get MacDonald convicted. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for two counts under section 212, “the pimp section” as task force officers had taken to calling it, as well as counts of aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm. The severity of the sentence reflected not so much the brutality of his behavior—other cases involved equally extreme violence against the girls in question—but his extensive criminal background, including three prison terms. The courts had already given him three strikes and were not ready to indulge him in a fourth.

  When it was all over, the perplexed Amber asked the Crown attorney why that tenant had come forward as he did. It wasn’t as if anyone was forcing him, she said; he could have just shrugged his shoulders and forgotten all about her. Craig Botterill just smiled: “That’s what good people do,” he said. “And there’s lots of them out there—you’ll see.”

  Craig Botterill did not always smile at the end of a case nor did he always have a kind word for his star witnesses. The passion and anger Clara Ferguson felt, after her nightmarish three days of beating and gang-rape in the North Preston house where she’d been taken, proved to be valuable allies in the trial of her pimp, Miguel Joseph. She also continued to be a strong prosecution weapon at trials for three of five other pimps she identified when she gave a detailed statement to the task force about her involvement in The Game. After that Clara’s resolve faltered. Craig Botterill didn’t even see it coming.

  When it came time to testify against the fifth man, Botterill was stunned when Clara refused to answer any of his questions; he’d spoken with her before the session began and noticed nothing that would suggest such recalcitrance was on the horizon. The judge, frustrated with the witness, ordered her jailed for contempt of court; hoping a night behind bars would rekindle her spirit of cooperation. Clara was outraged: after all she’d done for the task force, sh
e was the one behind bars! The angry girl used investigators own advice to other teenagers: she called a reporter she knew, and complained; when she returned to take the stand, Clara was greeted by a crowd gathered at the courthouse door to offer her support—they’d heard her story in the media—and several of her friends from Sullivan House followed reporters inside to hear her explanation to the judge.

  In simple terms, Clara told the court she was finished with these cases; she’d helped put four men in jail, and that was already enough to sentence her to a life spent looking over her shoulder. She wouldn’t do more. The pimp was discharged, the case against the sixth was dropped, and after the session Clara and the other girls held an impromptu news conference outside, complaining bitterly that the courts and the task force weren’t keeping pimps behind bars long enough to make it worth their while to testify. Botterill and the investigators were pleased with sentences in the two to seven year range; the girls had been hoping for life terms. They did not want to see their pimps on the street again, ever. Luckily, most of the task force’s witnesses disagreed, and continued to cooperate as the trials of other pimps proceeded. As for Clara, she left the safe house, returning to Toronto—and to prostitution. It was the first case to break Craig Botterill’s heart; it would not be the last. The case that left the deepest scar on the young prosecutor was one he thought he had won; the one he thought was so easy he handed it to someone else.