A violent pimp who tortured a 17-year-old girl at gunpoint was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison on Thursday. In addition to treating the victim as a sex slave in a hotel room, Steve Bédard offered more than $5,000 to literally buy the teenager.
The 29-year-old Montrealer was convicted last year of underage trafficking, sexual assault with a firearm and forcible confinement, among other things. He had also pleaded guilty during the trial to counts related to child pornography, in connection with this case. His accomplice, Benjamin Dion, was sentenced to seven years in prison last February.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Benjamin Dion at the Montreal courthouse, during the trial
The circumstances of this case are particularly horrific. The victim was forced into prostitution for days in a downtown Montreal hotel in August 2019. “You’re not getting out of there until Saturday. you do your shift said Steve Bédard, alias “Stevo”. “Clients” thus paid $280 an hour to assault the victim.
Steve Bédard and Benjamin Dion also repeatedly sexually assaulted the teenager, while her hands were handcuffed behind her back and she was impaired. In footage of an assault, the two men can be heard snickering.
On one occasion, the pair used a gun, a sordid sexual assault that was even caught on camera.
Compromising Videos
These horror images ended up on social networks, since the two pimps were selling the teenager’s sexual services. This is what caused their downfall.
Following a denunciation, the Tactical Intervention Group succeeded in snatching the victim from the claws of his executioners.
Even if the project did not materialize, Steve Bédard wanted to buy the teenager to make her his sex slave. “Steve offered a lot of money. He wanted to buy me expensive, $5,000, $10,000. I would have worked when he wanted, as he wanted, ”the victim had confided to the police. He also considered moving the teenager to Edmonton to offer his sexual services.
There are many aggravating factors in this case. Judge Alexandre St-Onge noted the role of “leader” of the accused, the vulnerability of the minor victim, his “advanced” state of intoxication and the premeditation of the crime. The judge also noted the fact that Steve Bédard had filmed and recorded the sexual assault in order to “enslave” the victim.
Detained for almost four years, Steve Bédard still presents a “high” risk of recidivism and displays many antisocial traits. But due to the time spent in pre-trial detention, where each day counts as a day and a half, he has only three years left to serve on his sentence.