A young pimp was sentenced to seven years in prison on Tuesday for forcing a teenage girl into prostitution for days in a hotel in downtown Montreal in August 2019. His accomplice is still awaiting the continuation of his trial next March.
Benjamin Dion, who was 18 at the time of the events, will therefore have to serve at least another 5 years and almost two months in a detention center, the court having accepted a joint suggestion from the crown and the defense on Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse.
In December 2021, in a shock testimony which had been read before the Court, a 17-year-old girl, now an adult, had recounted having experienced a real ordeal two years earlier.
The victim had reported being raped repeatedly by Benjamin Dion and his accomplice, Steve Bédard. Targeted by an arrest warrant because of her refusal to testify, the teenager had been subjected to a series of sordid sexual abuse, including the use of a pistol.
She had notably found herself sequestered in a hotel in downtown Montreal where she had to prostitute herself repeatedly. ” In the hotel, [Steve Bédard] said to me, ‘You’re not getting out of there until Saturday. You do your shift,’” she told the police. “It’s a sequestration because he didn’t want to let me out,” she added in her testimony.
Recall that Benjamin Dion was first released following his first hearings in the case, before being imprisoned after being found guilty by the Court, more than a year ago. He had been detained since, and has already accumulated approximately one year and 10 months of detention. On his seven-year sentence, he therefore has a little more than five years to serve.
Continuation of the procedures in March
As for him, Steve Bédard was in his early twenties at the time of the events. He is due back in court on March 20. He expressed his desire to hold an inquiry into the unconstitutionality of minimum sentences. This means concretely that he wishes to declare certain charges against him unconstitutional, in order to obtain a lesser sentence.
It was videos posted on social networks by the two men, showing the teenager in difficulty, which allowed the police to deliver her. But the victim was almost never rescued. “He wanted to take me to Edmonton”, she had notably reported, about Steve Bédard.
In the hotel, the police had arrested the two men, in addition to seizing handcuffs and a fake firearm. Earlier in the trial, Steve Bédard and Benjamin Dion had pleaded guilty to charges of possession, production and distribution of child pornography as well as an advertising charge for offering sexual services in the case of Benjamin Dion.
With Louis-Samuel Perron, The Press