Read the whole story at SeattlePI.com…

Once ‘head girl,’ local prostitute gets second chance from federal court
By PAUL SHUKOVSKY

Kelsey Kirschman was just 17-years-old — fresh out of high school in Bellingham — when a predatory pimp in Everett first manipulated then coerced her a year later into a life of prostitution.

But Kirschman found compassion in federal court Monday in part to recognize her testimony against her pimp that helped send him to prison last week for 26 years.

Kirschman, aka “Sexy Star,” shed tears as U.S. District Judge James Robart told her “you’re being given a second chance.” Robart accepted the recommendation of federal prosecutors that she be given a one-week sentence — time she has already served — and three months of home detention for money laundering, a charge to which she pleaded guilty. She must also serve three-years of supervised release.

Pimp Jerome Todd, sentenced last week on charges of sex trafficking, “repeatedly assaulted her physically” in order control Kirschman as his “head girl,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karyn Johnson and Ye-Ting Woo wrote in their sentencing memorandum. Before she med Todd, she was a “law-abiding, hard-working young woman.”

After she met Todd “she assisted other prostitutes in taking photographs, posting advertisements, and paying for motel rooms, clothes and cell phones.”

But Johnson told Robart Monday that despite the wrenching nature of her testimony that dredged up deeply traumatic memories, “she behaved in a manner that caused people to believe that she is a decent and upstanding person once she was away from Mr. Todd.” Her testimony against Todd was integral in prosecuting the pimp, Johnson said.