'I thought he loved me': Ex-girlfriend testifies in Steven Gilbert sex trafficking trial

A woman with Steven Gilbert's name tattooed on her body cried as she testified in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday about how he beat her, raped her and sold her for sex for years. The whole time, she said, Gilbert told her he loved her and acted like they were boyfriend and girlfriend. "I don't know why you could do this to me," she told Gilbert through sobs on the witness stand in Judge James Miraldi's courtroom. Gilbert — a 36-year-old convicted drug dealer, and accused pimp and sex trafficker — didn't react as he leaned over to speak to his defense attorney Steve Albenze while the woman composed herself on the stand. She was one of three women who have told a jury that Gilbert fed them drugs, forced them to perform sex acts and sold them three, four or as many as 10 men per day for months and years as part of a prostitution scheme he ran in Lorain, Cuyahoga and Erie counties from 2017 through 2021. The Lorain County Prosecutor's Office said the women were human trafficking victims, forced to stay addicted to heroin and cocaine while Gilbert took all the money they made from forced sex work. Prosecutors are expected to call more than a dozen witnesses against Gilbert. As part of his scheme, prosecutors say, Gilbert carried guns, wore Gucci and Dior, drove a series of Mercedes and allegedly banked thousands of dollars by forcing women into sex work prior to his arrest in 2021. Gilbert has pleaded not guilty to dozens of felony charges including rape, kidnapping, sexual battery, human trafficking, compelling and promoting prostitution, racketeering and money laundering in Common Pleas Court. The women he allegedly victimized are not being named by The Chronicle-Telegram because they survived alleged sexual abuse and human trafficking. As many as nine women say they were victimized by Gilbert in the same way in the past five years. Two of the women made numerous allegations against Gilbert in testimony they gave under oath in court on Wednesday. 'I thought he loved me' Gilbert's former girlfriend testified he claimed membership in the Almighty Vice Lord Nation — one of Chicago's largest gangs and one that is prominent elsewhere in the Great Lakes region. Gilbert received drugs from Chicago for distribution in Ohio, according to other testimony in court this week. He was convicted of drug trafficking in Common Pleas Court in 2022 and is serving a 10- to 15-year prison sentence. The former girlfriend testified that Gilbert raped her once when she was passed out after using drugs. He made fun of her for it when she woke up, she testified. "I tried to go home, to leave him. He wouldn't let me," she said, speaking hesitantly and quietly on the stand. Gilbert controlled when and how much heroin she did, she said, and demanded sexual acts in exchange for drugs every morning. He frequently raped her and other women who were addicted to the drugs he forced them to buy or obtain from him and no one else, she testified. The woman testified she would "do what he said I had to do. Anything I was told to do, I did." Gilbert beat her "not to hurt me. He beat me so I'd learn from my mistakes," she testified. He gave her black eyes, broke her ribs after she got drugs from one of his dealers, and burned her with blunts — marijuana cigars. Gilbert paid for her to get a large tattoo of his name on her body on Christmas Day 2016. He texted her threats that she and Assistant Prosecutor Tom DeRoma took turns reading out loud in court. "Keep lying over dumb s--- you're gonna get yourself hurt," Gilbert texted her. "I'm gonna smack you 10 times harder," he threatened. "I need to knock some sense into you," he wrote. "Guess I gotta start smacking you again," read another text. "There's always consequences with him," the former girlfriend testified. "It was his way or no way." When she nearly died from an infection related to her addiction and required major surgery, she said Gilbert promised he would take care of her. Instead, when she was released from the hospital after surgery that saved her life, he brought her heroin and cocaine "to feel better," she said. Gilbert had her back to prostitution "a couple hours later," she testified. "I thought he loved me," she said. 'It was terrible' Another woman who was an alleged victim of Gilbert's testified she grew up in the LaGrange community dreaming of a nursing career. But her family was "dysfunctional," she began smoking marijuana and drinking in high school, had problems coping with stress, and got addicted to painkillers. She graduated to snorting heroin, lost her job, and by 2018 was also addicted to crack cocaine. That's how she met Gilbert, a drug dealer who went by the nicknames "Cheese" or "Cheddar" who dressed nicely and was "flirty" with women. "I could tell he was the plug drug dealer," meaning "he had a lot of drugs to sell," she said. She wanted to quit drugs, but her insurance wouldn't pay for rehab, she said. "I was just trying every day to stop doing drugs and it just never worked," she said. The first time she sold her body for drugs, Gilbert texted a "john" and the man met her for sex in his car in the parking lot of an Elyria nursing home, she testified. She lent her car to Gilbert and did sexual favors for him when she couldn't afford drugs. For three months, she saw "three to four" men per day for sex. All her money went to Gilbert. "It was terrible," she said. "It was disgusting. It was the worst time of my life." She moved to central Ohio, beat her addiction and found work — then relapsed, overdosed and was charged with felony drug crimes. After a stint in rehab and sober living, she came back to Lorain County in 2019. Three days after she did, she relapsed, overdosed and went deaf as a result. She fell back under Gilbert's control, and he forced her to keep seeing "johns" for sex even as her body tried to repair her hearing. "I just didn't care anymore," she testified. That woman and Gilbert's girlfriend bounced from motel to motel, forced to meet men for sex. They stayed at the Sunset Motel on Oberlin Elyria Road, the Journey Inn, Knights Inn, Camelot Inn and Motel 9 in Elyria and "every Motel 6 in Lorain County." Previous testimony also identified motels in Amherst, North Ridgeville, Sandusky and Milan. Testimony Wednesday added North Olmsted to that list. Gilbert paid the bills for all the rooms, provided the drugs and transportation, she testified. He forced them to pay to gas up his cars. The women were making as much as $1,000 per day at times seeing "johns," keeping only $100 here and there for food and necessities. Gilbert hit the women if they didn't earn enough money for him, stole their phones so they couldn't call for help and was in constant contact every day. He set them up in an apartment at 1864 Middle Ave. in Elyria that was infested with roaches and had no running water, both women testified Wednesday. Testimony resumes today. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.