Woman: I was forced to Sell Sex

Chicago - A woman testified Tuesday in the trial of three men accused of running a prostitution ring that she saw several girls beaten and was forced to prostitute herself.

The woman, who went by the initials of B.G., was the first of several women expected to testify in U.S. District Court in Hammond, Ind., in the trial of Justin "Tootie" Cephus, Stanton Cephus and Jovan Stewart, all of whom face various charges of sex trafficking and sex trafficking of minors.

B.G. said she first called the man who she later learned was Justin Cephus in the summer of 2008. B.G., who was then 18, said she believed that Cephus' business, which she saw in the Yellow Pages, was a modeling agency and that she wanted to work for them.

Instead, she was given alcohol and drugs her first night at Cephus' house in Hammond and was taken on a prostitution call. B.G. said she didn't want to take her clothes off in front of the client but was warned otherwise.

"[Another girl] said do it because they would slap me and leave me at the house," B.G. told the court.

B.G. said she then had sex with the client and that after she returned to the house, Justin Cephus told Stewart to get B.G. under control and hit her, which Stewart did.

"Tootie said you ain't hit her hard enough," B.G. said, adding that Stewart hit her again.

The men also took away her phone and said she couldn't leave, she said.

B.G. also testified that she saw Justin Cephus and Stewart hit girls on various other occasions, and that she and two other girls tried to escape once but the men found out.

The girls were also made to go to a shopping mall and try to find "pretty girls" to recruit, B.G. said.

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