Crown lawyer Damienne Darby addresses the court while the accused 29-year-old Reza Moazami writes in the prisoner’s box in a court drawing.Felicity Don/The Canadian Press
A Vancouver man who was accused of preying on vulnerable girls as young as 14 and luring them into a prostitution ring has been convicted on 30 counts, with the judge saying he created an "atmosphere of fear" to keep the teens under his control.
Reza Moazami was convicted Monday in B.C. Supreme Court. He was found guilty of five counts of sexual assault, four counts of sexual exploitation, three counts of sexual interference, eight counts of living off the avails of prostitution, and four counts of procuring a person to become a prostitute, among others.
Mr. Moazami was also found guilty on one count of human trafficking – though the count referred to controlling a person's movement to the point she feared for her safety and not taking her across a border as human trafficking is commonly understood.
The Crown's case was made up of 11 complainants, nine of whom said they were under the age of 18 when they worked for Mr. Moazami, between 2009 and 2011. He had been charged with 36 counts in all.
The court heard Mr. Moazami systematically recruited at-risk girls – some had addiction issues, most had family and school problems, all lacked stability – and used a number of strategies to keep them working.
The court heard he promised the teens glamorous lives in upscale condos. In some instances, Mr. Moazami would give the girls small dogs, then threaten to hurt the animals or take them away if the teens didn't do what he wanted. The court also heard Mr. Moazami would supply the teens with drugs.
Some of the teens could keep half their earnings, while others said they naively agreed to let Mr. Moazami control their money and missed out on tens of thousands of dollars.
Justice Catherine Bruce, in her ruling, said Mr. Moazami was untruthful and unreliable in his testimony. She said he continually ignored questions and repeated self-serving statements. The judge said Mr. Moazami "would have the court believe that all of the complainants lied under oath about every event that formed the subject of the charges against him."
Justice Bruce said some of Mr. Moazami's claims were particularly "incredible." She said he testified that he had told the teens not to get attached to the dogs because he bought and sold the animals for profit, an assertion that was completely at odds with the complainants' evidence. The judge also said Mr. Moazami's explanation for his attempt to try to sell one of the teens to another pimp – that he was only asking whether the other pimp wanted to buy some of her time – was "absurd and ridiculous."
"Mr. Moazami also testified in great detail about events that occurred up to five years before he took the witness stand; however, he often had no memory of many of the incriminating statements he made in text messages and Facebook messages from the same period or later. In short, his entire demeanour as a witness was indicative of a person who is not telling the truth," the judge wrote.
Karen Bastow, Mr. Moazami's lawyer, declined comment after the ruling.
Kristin Bryson, one of the prosecutors in the case, said she was pleased with the judge's decision and lauded the complainants for testifying.
"It's very, very difficult to be a witness and when you're a teenage girl it's even that [much] more difficult. When you're a teenage girl having to describe atrocities that were committed against you, yeah, it was challenging," she said.
Damienne Darby, the other prosecutor, said some of the victims have put the case behind them and built new lives. Others, she said, are struggling.
A sentencing hearing will be held in December and Ms. Bryson said the Crown will be asking for "a significant amount of jail time." She said the Crown is also expecting the defence to file an appeal.
Sergeant Richard Akin, a member of the Vancouver Police Department's counterexploitation unit who was in the courtroom Monday, said he, too, was pleased with the ruling. He said the exploitation of young females is a problem everywhere, and the department is committed to investigating it.
Hilla Kerner, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, wrote in a statement that the case highlights how men can use "coercion, threats and violence to recruit girls and women into prostitution and to keep them there."