An ex go-go dancer was sentenced to 80 years in prison for prostituting teens as young as 15-years-old.
Steven Donald Lemery was convicted in late August of sex trafficking and was sentenced on Wednesday in Douglas County, Georgia, receiving what prosecutors described as a life sentence for the 37-year-old Lemery will not be eligible for parole for 50 years, according to Assistant District Attorney Rachel Ackley.
Steven Donald Lemery (left) was sentenced to 80 years in prison for trafficking and prostituting teens. His accomplice, Christopher Lynch, (right) was sentenced in March to 30 years for his part.
The convicted sex trafficker previously worked as a go-go dancer under the stage name Steven Lang at B.J. Roosters, an Atlanta gay club.
He shared a house with Christopher Lynch, a drag dancer known as Pasha Nicole.
Together the pair held teens as sex slaves, providing them with drugs and alcohol and repeatedly tormenting them with ‘all kinds of terrible sex acts,’ according to prosecutors.
Douglas County Sheriffs have located victims in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina in the trafficking scheme that is believed to have lasted for two to three years.
Two of Lemery’s victims were 15-years-old at the time of the offenses, and a third was 18.
‘There was testimony how victims were held in the house, not allowed to leave, given drugs and alcohol, and just subjected to all kinds of terrible sex acts,’ Ackley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
‘One of the victims testified at trial by being forced to prostitute and while being held at a client’s house, he was held down and burned as they attempted to rape them.’
Steven Donald Lemery (left) went by the stage name Steven Lang when he worked as a go-go dancer at an Atlanta gay club. His housemate and accomplice Lynch (right) worked as a drag queen, Pasha Nicole.
Investigators discovered in January 2011 that Lemery was involved in the sex ring and Lynch openly spoke to the press, bragging about how he assisted officials in catching Lemery.
‘Most of the victims were runaways or easy targets,’ Douglas Country Chief Deputy Sheriff Stan Copeland said, describing how the two used social networking sites to entice victims.
‘They would put the kids in a dependent situation. If they wanted to leave, they’d have to perform sexual favors.’
But it soon became apparent that Lynch was an active participant in the sex abuse, when a victim saw Lynch on the news and alerted authorities.
Lemery was found guilty on August 24 of six counts of human trafficking, two counts of aggravated child molestation, and enticing a child for indecent purposes and pandering by compulsion.
In March, Lynch was sentenced to 30 years for pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, pimping a victim under the age of 18 and pandering by compulsion.
