According to prosecutors, a male from El Cajon was found guilty of trying to entice a woman and a teenage girl into prostitution in East and South County.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the 14-year-old girl was heading to a friend’s house in El Cajon in April 2024 when Steven Terrell Lewis, 39, pulled up to her.
Prosecutors claimed that after blocking her path with his car, he took her smartphone and obtained her number. He identified himself as “Pimpin” and sent her a sexually explicit image after he started texting her.
The girl contacted a high school coach about Lewis’s attempt to persuade her to become a prostitute, and El Cajon police and sheriff’s deputies were alerted.
Prosecutors claim that a week later, Lewis used a personal website to get in touch with a 22-year-old lady and told her to work as a sex worker in the South Bay. But an undercover National City police officer who seemed to be a prospective customer picked her up.
The woman was able to quit prostitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, but Lewis persisted in threatening her to encourage her to return to his services.
The words “run me some bread or I’m pulling up on u when u least expect” were included in one of these texts to her. “I can find you at all times,” remarked another.
Lewis was taken into custody on May 16, 2024. They believe Lewis has tried to get more victims to become prostitutes. A photo of a handwritten note that was discovered on his phone was used by the prosecution.
It said, “We will have a problem if I discover this car is following my daughter down Graves Ave. once more.”
Lewis was known to drive a brown or beige four-door 1986 Chevrolet with California license plate number 1REC517 and a white, four-door 1996 Oldsmobile with California license plate number 3TIF671, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Lewis’ sentencing is set for August 1. The obligatory minimum penalty for attempted coercion or enticement of a minor offense is ten years. The mandatory minimum sentence for attempted sex trafficking by force or compulsion is 15 years.
