OAKLAND — A San Leandro man who had been charged with trafficking and raping his former girlfriend has agreed to serve eight years in state prison as part of a plea deal, Alameda County prosecutors announced Monday.
Ricky Levi, 31, pleaded no contest to a single human trafficking count in exchange for prosecutors dropping several more felony charges related to alleged pimping and sexual assault of the victim. He is set to be formally sentenced to eight years in March.
Levi was arrested and charged in 2021. At his March 2022 preliminary hearing, his victim — known in court records only by the pseudonym Jane Doe — testified that she met Levi when he approached her at a bus stop in San Francisco and the two started a romantic relationship soon after.
She testified that she considered herself a “hustler” and willingly prostituted herself to make money for them. She said she kept about $50 of every $200 she made and gave the rest to him.
Her attitude towards their arrangement changed when Levi became physically abusive, she testified. One example was when he backhand-slapped her in Los Angeles, leaving a mark on her face, she said, adding that he would also frequently remind her that she was a prostitute, and not — as she liked to put it — a hustler.
“He just turned into this monster. Like he turned into a whole different person,” Doe testified. “He would sweat, just his eyes, just his demeanor, the way he talked. He would, you know, just make me feel nervous. He would just make me scared. You know, like he’ll hit me with a belt buckle. He’ll make me give him oral. He’s just, very irrational.”
At a certain point, Levi decided he didn’t want to be a pimp anymore and began working at a warehouse in Hayward, Doe testified. But they kept in contact, and he ended up sexually assaulting her one night, at knifepoint, inside a vehicle, she said on the stand. Once she broke away from him, she ended up living in a domestic violence shelter.
At the preliminary hearing, Levi’s lawyer, Elliot Silver, argued prosecutors failed to prove human trafficking, which requires that the victim be forced or coerced into prostitution.
“A complete loss of her personal liberty, I just don’t think it exists,” Silver said at the hearing. “She said she had her own money. She had her own place to stay. She told us that she did this for love, as much as it seems unusual in a situation like this.”
In 2022, Levi’s sister wrote a support letter to the court saying the allegations were out of character for him and describing him as “kind, courteous, bright, ambitious, and helpful.”
In a news release highlighting the plea deal, Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price noted that January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month and added her office is dedicated to “preventing human trafficking, raising awareness about this form of modern-day slavery, and doing what we can to combat it.” She added that Levi’s conviction “demonstrates that in
2024, we are starting the year doing as much as we can to prosecute and convict anyone guilty of trafficking children and adults in Alameda County.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com