14 Years in Prison for Drag Queen Pimp

A drag performer will spend at least the next 14 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to pimping out and sexually manipulating a 16-year-old in Douglasville.

Christopher Lynch, 22, who performed as Pasha Nicole, pleaded guilty in to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, one count of pimping a victim under age 18 and one count of pandering by compulsion, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Judge David Emerson sentenced Lynch to a 30-year sentence with at least 14 years behind bars, Project Q Atlanta said. Assistant District Attorney Rachel Ackley had asked for a 40-year sentence with 18 years in prison, while public defender Alison Frutoz sought five years of prison time in a 20-year sentence.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped a more serious charge of human trafficking, which could have resulted in a life sentence, WSB-TV said.

Lynch also agreed to testify against the man accused of leading the transgender, forced-sex operation, Stephen Lemery, 37.

“I was wrong,” a tearful Lynch said in court Wednesday, a WSB video showed.

Both men were arrested in early March 2011 after an investigation starting that January found adult and minor victims in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina over two to three years, the announced March 11, 2011. Both have been held without bond since then.

Lynch claimed in a televised interview with Fox 5 Atlanta to have helped investigators bust Lemery on March 2, 2011.

But one of his teen victims in Alabama saw the interview and told authorities Lynch was involved in the sex trafficking and abuse, the AJC said. He was arrested two days after Lemery.

Lemery worked as a go-go dancer named Steven Lang at an Atlanta gay bar, , The Georgia Voice said.

Lynch and his boyfriend lived in Lemery’s house in the 3600 block of Long Lake Drive, near Stewart Mill and Chapel Hill roads. Also living there were Lemery’s wife and children, the wife’s boyfriend, and various victims of sex trafficking, Project Q said.

One of those victims, Project Q said, was a transgender 16-year-old boy who was forced to live in a closet, was pimped out several times a day and was addicted to crack.

Ackley said she was pleased to get justice without forcing the teen victim to relive those experiences during a trial, the Douglas County Sentinel said.

Still, Lemery faces trial this year on felony charges of child molestation, enticing a child for indecent purposes, aggravated child molestation, pandering, human trafficking for sexual servitude and trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, according to records.