Pimp sentenced to 11 years in prison

A man who picked up a vulnerable 17-year-old child-welfare ward on the streets of Winnipeg and coerced her into providing sexual services for several months has been sent to prison for more than a decade.

After a trial, Hassan Kargbo, who’s in his early 30s, was found guilty of sexual exploitation, making child sexual abuse and exploitation material, receiving a material benefit from sexual services provided by a person under 18, procuring a person under 18 and advertising sexual services.

Provincial court Judge Julie Frederickson sentenced him to 11 years behind bars late last month.

“Mr. Kargbo picked up a young Indigenous girl walking over the Osborne Street bridge and quickly got her involved in drug use and escorting,” Frederickson said in a written decision.

“She was 17 and vulnerable; a ward of (child and family services) and with many pre-existing diagnoses. The impact of these offences on her is significant.”

In August 2023, Kargbo saw the victim walking on the bridge, pulled up to her and invited her into his vehicle. She was 17 and he was 30.

Almost immediately, Kargbo took her with him to a drug deal and introduced her to cocaine, the judge wrote.

“They had sex and she began staying at his apartment. Shortly thereafter, he induced her to work for him as an escort. He told her he knew how to do it,” wrote Frederickson.

“She testified that she didn’t particularly want to, but she did want to earn money. She liked Mr. Kargbo and wanted to be in a relationship with him. She agreed.”

Kargbo took explicit photos of her, telling her how to pose and position her body, and made advertisements and set the rates charged for sex work.

“He told her what to wear, how to do her makeup, what to say to the men and where to meet them. He dictated the sex acts she would and would not do, and insisted that she always use a condom, which he supplied,” wrote Frederickson. “He would answer the ads pretending to be her by text but having her speak to the men on the phone. He would hide in the other room of the apartment or in his closet while she was with the men in the living room.”

He took the cash the men paid the girl and controlled an email address to which some of the johns sent payment via e-transfer, said the judge.

Over the course of three to four months, Kargbo exploited the girl to engage in paid sexual activity with about 100 men, sometimes several in one day, Frederickson wrote.

Crown prosecutors sought 12 years in prison for the pimp, while Kargbo’s defence lawyer asked for a sentence in the range of seven-and-a-half to nine-and-a-half years.

After her long-term foster parents died, the teenage girl had been bouncing between child and family services placements at the time Kargbo met her. She has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, said the judge.

She had been seeing a therapist, but stopped because she could no longer confide in the therapist after meeting Kargbo.

Kargbo also got her addicted to cocaine, which she told the trial she used “constantly” during the time she spent with Kargbo. It led to mental breakdowns and a bipolar disorder diagnosis.

The girl attended school less frequently, got into a fight at school over rumours about her and lost her CFS placement, making her reliant on Kargbo for a place to stay, said Frederickson.

She also experienced physical problems as a result of the coerced sex work, including contracting a sexually transmitted disease, said the judge.

“The harms described by (the girl) will no doubt have an ongoing, likely permanent, impact on her,” wrote Frederickson.

Kargbo came to Winnipeg at 10 years old as a refugee from Sierra Leone with his grandmother and a cousin.

He will be placed in an immigration limbo upon his release from prison, as he would be ordered deported automatically for serious criminality if not for his status as a protected refugee, said Frederickson.

Instead, the judge has been advised, deportation is dependent upon the federal immigration minister’s office preparing an opinion on whether he constitutes a danger if he remains in Canada, which is a discretionary action that can take several years.

He will serve just under seven more years in prison, considering time served pre-trial.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca