Man gets prison for violently forcing his girlfriend into sex work in Sacramento
A Sacramento Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced a man who violently attacked his girlfriend several times and seriously injured her to force her into sex work, prosecutors said.
Judge Benjamin Galloway sentenced Lee Andrew Williams Jr., 43, to 31 years and four months in prison for the crimes reported last year, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
A jury on March 18 found Williams guilty of human trafficking, pimping, causing mayhem and making criminal threats. Prosecutors said his charges included enhancements for causing great bodily injury involving human trafficking and pimping, along with taking advantage of a position of trust on a particularly vulnerable victim.
On May 20, officers from the Sacramento Police Department responded to a report of human trafficking of a woman being treated at a hospital after suffering major injuries.
The woman told officers she met Williams more than a year earlier and moved to Sacramento to live with him as his girlfriend. Prosecutors said Williams then proposed an idea that his girlfriend engage in sex work because he needed more money.
Williams then used coercion, threats, promises and recurring severe violence over the next 18 months to force his girlfriend to engage in sex work, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Williams coordinated meetings with people paying for sex, set prices, approved online advertisements and kept all the money earned in the sex work.
Prosecutors said Williams broke his girlfriend’s arm on two occasions and punched her in the face during an argument over the sex work. She suffered facial fractures and permanent blindness in her right eye.
Last year, Williams hit her while in his car, prosecutors said. She jumped out of the moving vehicle to escape, suffering road rash on her body and a compound fracture to her left arm.
Prosecutors said the woman called her mother to help her and take her to the hospital. Williams went back to the woman after she escaped, and her mother convinced him to bring her daughter to a gas station, so she could take the injured woman to a hospital. There, she reported the crimes to police.
Williams was arrested and booked the following morning at the Sacramento County Main Jail. On Tuesday, Williams remained in custody at the jail as he awaited a transfer to a prison.
