News

Man forced women into prostitution

By Julie Manganis
Staff writer
Published: October 9, 2008

DANVERS — Trevor Jones had worked as a landscaper and a telemarketer and in retail.

Then he became a pimp and started making thousands of dollars a week, financing a lifestyle glamorized in some of the videos police later found in a Peabody hotel room when they arrested Jones, 31, last fall.

Yesterday, he pleaded guilty to forcing at least two women, both of whom were desperate and drug-addicted, into prostitution. He demanded that each woman bring home at least $1,000 a night from street walking and from assignations at hotels up and down Route 1, a prosecutor said.

Judge Howard Whitehead sentenced Jones to two to five years in state prison, followed by five years of probation, during which he will be required to prove to probation officers that he is working at a legitimate job.

Two years is the minimum mandatory term for deriving support from prostitution, one of three charges Jones admitted to yesterday. The maximum penalty is five years. Jones also pleaded guilty to procuring a person into prostitution and soliciting for prostitution.

The pleas came as Jones was about to stand trial on the charges.

A group of state and local police led by state police detective Sgt. Pi Haseltine began investigating after getting information from one of the women involved.

Soon, investigators had tracked Jones and another man, Damon Hendricks, to motels and hotels all over the North Shore, including places in Peabody, Danvers, Middleton, Salem and Saugus.

They learned that Jones met the women at parties and invited them to stay with him, providing them drugs, prosecutor Melissa Woodard said.

Soon, though, the women would learn that there was a price to be paid for Jones' supposed kindness: He would require them to "walk the track," slang for streetwalking, in downtown Boston, and set up meetings with men at hotels and motels, some of which were set up using a popular Internet site that includes classified ads for "erotic services."

The women were required to charge at least $150, and expected to meet a $1,000-a-night quota, Woodard said.

They were required to turn over all of the money to Jones.

Jones' lawyer, William Martin, noted that some of the money did go toward food, clothing and motel rooms for the women.

Woodard argued that Jones used those basic life necessities, as well as the drugs to feed their addictions, to entice the women into a situation they could not easily escape. Jones put the women's health and safety at risk on a daily basis and controlled every aspect of their life, eroding their self-esteem, she said.

Jones was already on probation for a similar case in Andover; his lawyer said he is facing a probation violation hearing but will likely serve concurrent time for that matter.

Martin also filed a motion seeking the return of a laptop computer, jewelry and $2,000 in cash police seized when they raided Jones' hotel room last fall. Jones claims the cash was from an insurance settlement, a suggestion prosecutors rejected.

Whitehead did not immediately rule on the request but said that even if he does find that the $2,000 and the computer were not proceeds of illegal activity, he would not allow Jones to have the money back. He said it would be turned over to the state's public defender agency to help cover the cost of Jones' legal defense.