A 22-year-old man from Jamaica has pleaded guilty to forcing a 15-year-old girl into prostitution so that she could deliver the money to him, the Queens district attorney said Friday.
Christopher Stephensbush of Sutphin Boulevard entered a guilty plea to sex trafficking in Queens Supreme Court Thursday in return for a sentence of 2 1/3 to seven years in prison for his criminal behavior in June and July 2013, DA Richard Brown said. He was scheduled to be sentenced June 16.
Citing court records, Brown said Stephensbush met the victim at a bus stop as she was on her way to school, took her back to his apartment and held her there against her will for two days. At that point he refused to let her leave until she gave him money she had earned by having sex with men, the DA said.
She escaped only to be confronted by him again at the same bus stop a month later, when he again forced her prostitution, according to Brown.
“The defendant has now admitted to using intimidation to coerce a teenage girl into sleeping with men for money — money that she had to turn over to the defendant,” the DA said. “A term of incarceration behind bars is more than warranted in this case.”
