AKRON -- U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi has sentenced an Elyria man to life in prison for prostituting young women he kept hooked on heroin.
Thirty-eight-year-old Jeremy Mack was sentenced Thursday by a federal judge in Akron after being convicted in February of nine counts that included sex trafficking and drug trafficking.
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Ashley Onysko of Avon Lake was sentenced to 30 months in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to sex trafficking charges.
The 24-year-old Onysko told investigators that she helped Mack by arranging sex meetings and posting online ads.
Mack's original lawyers, two assistant federal public defenders, were removed from the case last year after prosecutors accused them of helping Mack violate a no-contact order with witnesses and victims.
"Jeremy Mack preyed upon vulnerable women and held them in conditions akin to modern-day slavery," said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. "His conduct was offensive to everything this community and this country stand for, but his victims persevered, survived and exposed his twisted world of forced sex, violence and drug trafficking. Jeremy Mack earned every day of this sentence."
"Preying on, coercing and forcing children into a world of drugs and sex is simply despicable and will not be tolerated," said Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cleveland office. "This sentence clearly demonstrates that law enforcement and the courts will work together to ensure those responsible for such horrific crimes pay for their actions.
"This is an example of local police and federal law enforcement working together to make our community safer," Elyria Police Chief Duane Whitely said.
