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NEW WESTMINSTER — The judge in the case of a B.C. woman who pleaded guilty to assault and sex trafficking is taking time to decide on a sentence.
Lawyers will be meeting next week to set a date for Justice Terence Schultes to sentence Jennifer Stephens after a three-day hearing in B.C. Supreme Court concluded Wednesday.
The Crown prosecutor proposed a 13-year sentence for the 31-year-old, while her lawyer has suggested the judge sentence her to seven years with credit for time already served.
Stephens pleaded guilty last year to multiple charges, including assault causing bodily harm, unlawful confinement, sexual assault with a weapon and several other offences related to sex trafficking of a person under 18.
The court heard that she inflicted violent beatings on her victims and boasted of a client list of 500 people that she refused to sell to other “pimps.”
Stephens’ lawyer Dale Melville told the court his client suffers from intermittent explosive disorder or borderline personality disorder as well as substance-use disorders involving stimulants and alcohol. He said she has been sober while in custody.
Crown counsel Catherine Rose told the judge on Wednesday that in order for someone’s mental health to be a factor in sentencing there needs to be a link between the offences and the mental health concerns.
This case doesn’t have the required detailed and specific medical evidence, she said.
Rose said the judge should put “little weight” on the potential role of others in the situation, pointing to an agreed statement of facts in the case where Stephens acknowledges she arranged and oversaw the sex work and controlled the schedule.
Stephens also told a friend she “did it alone,” when describing the operation, the Crown said.
Melville pointed to a report from police, which says investigators had evidence to support charging another person, but they died of a suspected drug overdose in 2023.
He said another person linked to one of the victims in this case had sex trafficking charges sworn against them in Edmonton.
Melville told the judge that the Crown hasn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Stephens was the “mastermind” in the situation “because we have other players in the game.”
Police in Langley, B.C., started investigating the case in February 2023, beginning with a phone number that was linked to a 13-year-old girl who had been trafficked in Alberta and Kelowna, B.C.
RCMP received a call from a gas station attendant on March 7, 2023, who reported a badly injured and bloody woman.
That woman told police she had been confined inside hotel rooms and assaulted by Stephens and a man over the course of four to five hours.
Stephens met the woman, who was a sex worker, in 2021. The next year, Stephens lured the victim into believing she was a man and began a romantic relationship through texts.
Between March 2022 and March 2023, the woman sent nearly $63,000 to bank accounts controlled by Stephens.
The hearing included playing violent and graphic videos involving Stephens and her victims, and impact statements from her victims who said Stephens inflicted not only physical but psychological trauma that will take a lifetime to work through.
— With files from Brieanna Charlebois
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2026
Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press
