Crown seeks 23-year prison sentence in sprawling human-trafficking case

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The Crown is seeking what would be one of the longest prison sentences ever in the country for a man central to a far-reaching human trafficking case.

Assistant Crown attorney Heather Palin argued that Jordan Hawke, 32, of Cambridge, be sentenced to 23 years on 10 human trafficking-related convictions for a scheme that was carried out in several Ontario cities including London, Windsor, Mississauga, Sudbury, Orillia, Burlington, Brantford, Woodstock, Waterloo and Guelph.

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Hawke recruited women first by meeting them on social media or in person, began intimate relationships with them, then suggest they become paid escorts and split the profits with him.

The women, some of them young, were forced to work at all hours in hotel rooms across the province, take on many clients and were sometimes threatened and beaten.

Palin told Superior Court Justice Michael Carnegie that the criminal conduct was “was at the highest end of the scale” and should demand the highest sentence.

Hawke’s defence lawyer, Anne Marie Morphew, argued for a global sentence of 12 to 14 years. Both the Crown and defence suggestions could be further reduced by Hawke’s three years of pre-plea custody, and, as Morphew argued, a further reduction of 18 to 30 months for the poor conditions in the provincial detention system.

Hawke’s hearing has been held over three days this week with much of the first day focused on his pre-plea custody housing and the conditions where he was under lock-down and sometimes quadruple-bunked.

Hawke pleaded not guilty in May to the charges to maintain his appeal rights for a Charter argument about the court delay. After an agreed statement of facts was filed, Carnegie convicted him.

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The facts of the case were troubling. Between 2016 and 2020, Hawke operated an elaborate scheme where the services of the women were advertised online and Hawke set them up in hotel rooms. One of the young women who was threatened earned $100,000, with half of it going to Hawke.

When she decided to leave his clutches, Hawke took intimate photos of her and posted them on a porn website.

Much of the money earned was laundered through bank accounts, cryptocurrency and sports betting.

Hawke was identified as a suspect in June 2020 but remained on the lam until September 2021, when he was seen leaving his mother’s Cambridge home.

One of his co-accused, Joel Ramocan, 32, of Milton, who played a bit part in the scheme recruiting and transporting women to various locations, was sentenced by Carnegie last month to 30 months behind bars.

His sentencing hearing was interrupted by a Zoom-bombing – a computer hacking of the teleconferencing link – and hard-core pornography images were projected across a large London courtroom.

In light of that disturbance, Carnegie ordered earlier this week that there not be a Zoom link available for Hawke’s sentencing hearing. Carnegie’s decision will be delivered at a later date.

jsims@postmedia.com

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