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Updated: 7:06 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2012 | Posted: 8:40 p.m. Monday, Aug. 27, 2012

Go-go dancer guilty of trafficking in minors

By David Ibata

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A former Atlanta go-go dancer faces multiple sentences of life in prison after a Douglas County jury found him guilty of human trafficking and other offenses in a case involving runaway minors, authorities said.

Steven Donald Lemery was convicted Friday of six counts of human trafficking, two counts of aggravated child molestation, enticing a child for indecent purposes and pandering by compulsion, according to a news release from the Douglas District Attorney's Office.

Lemery could get two life sentences plus 160 years when he is sentenced Sept. 5 by Superior Court Judge David T. Emerson, prosecutors said.

In March, Lemery's former roommate and co-defendant Christopher Lynch was sentenced to 30 years -- 14 years to be served in prison — after he pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, pimping a victim under the age of 18 and pandering by compulsion.

Lemery danced under the name Steven Lang at B.J. Rooster's on Cheshire Bridge Road. Lynch was a drag show personality better known to local audiences as Pasha Nicole. The suspects lived in a home off Chapel Hill Road in Douglasville.

Lemery was targeted by investigators in January 2011 after a victim from Alabama alerted authorities.

Lynch initially took credit in news interviews for aiding the investigation against Lemery, but was himself incriminated when a minor victim saw him on TV news and identified him to authorities.

Most of the men's alleged victims were runaways, investigators have said. Douglas Sheriff's deputies identified victims in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina in a trafficking scheme that allegedly had been going on for two to three years.

— Staff writer Christian Boone contributed to this article.

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