WARNING: Some of the details in this story are disturbing. Discretion is advised.
A woman charged in a human trafficking case involving young victims has been sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Jennifer Lynn Stephens was charged in 2023 with 14 offences in connection with a human sex trafficking investigation.
Her victims included several adults, as well as a 13-year-old girl who had already been the victim of sex trafficking. None of these victims can be identified under a publication ban.
On March 7 of that year, Langley RCMP said they received a 911 call from a gas station near a hotel in the area of 204 Street and 88 Avenue in the Township of Langley.
The gas station attendant told police that an injured, distressed woman had walked in and asked to call the police.
Officers responded and while providing first aid to the woman, they were told to go to a nearby hotel.
That investigation led to the assault charge being filed against Stephens.
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Video played in court in June showed Stephens and a man in a drug- and alcohol-fueled assault against a sex worker.
The video showed the victim’s head in a toilet, while Stephens stood on her back. The victim was whipped with a phone cord, hit with a bottle and fridge door, and punched.
This went on for four to five hours before the victim was able to get to the gas station.
In January 2025, Stephens pleaded guilty to 17 charges in a human sex trafficking investigation.
Crown prosecutors had asked for the 13-year prison sentence that was handed down on Thursday. Given credit for time served, Stephens will spend another eight years behind bars.
Outside the courthouse after the sentence was announced, one of the victims told Global News that it feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
“I’m happy with it,” she said.
“I mean, obviously I would have liked more, but she got the most time that she would have gotten, which is all that I could have asked for.”
The victim said there are still days when she has terrible anxiety and PTSD from what happened to her, but she hopes Stephens takes the time in jail to heal and better herself.
“I’ve done a lot of therapy and I’ve looked at things from her perspective and her ways and how I look at it,” she said.
“If I have so much hatred and everything towards her, then, am I ever gonna be able to move past it?”
Human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation or harbouring of persons, or the control of their movements, for exploitation, police said.
Typically, victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation or forced labour. In this case, in Langley, it is alleged that victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation.
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