One would think if you were subjected to beatings and torture by a pimp, you would want to that person jailed for their crimes. But this is the case with the sentencing of accused and convicted sex trafficker Karmik Grant-Byas in New York. He was convicted in February on charges of sex trafficking and promoting prostitution and was sentenced yesterday to 14 to 42 years in prison. In an insane case of the abused loving the abuser, one of his victims appealed to the judge that Grant-Byas was a family man and deserved a lighter sentence from the court.
Grant-Byas’ trial was filled with horrific details of how he would burn women with curling irons, starve them, and not allow them to leave the apartment where he was forcing them into prostitution. One of his victims, Jennifer Encarnacion, was allowed to read a statement in court that supported the convicted pimp. Encarnacion stated that she prostituted herself not by force but by choice. “I could have left whenever I wanted. But I’m still here standing 100 percent behind him,” she said.
Justice Bonnie Wittner was unfazed by the woman’s statements and delivered a withering repudiation of Grant-Byas and his behavior. She dismissed the claims by Grant-Byas and Encarnacion that their operation was a business partnership. “I think they had to ask for money to get their nails done, hair done. Even some days they were left in the apartment, in the house, they didn’t have money to get food. This was not a business operation. This was a sex trafficking operation. I’d put Mr. Grant-Byas up there with the best of them in terms of his abusive behavior, his misogyny, his violence toward all four of these women,” Wittner said.
Grant-Byas stood in court and issued a halfhearted apology stating that the judge was against him and that “I made mistakes and I done [sic] wrong.” He was then led out of the courtroom and was seen mouthing to Encarnacion that he would call her later.
