An Atlanta drag show personality pleaded guilty Wednesday in a human trafficking case out of Douglas County and was sentenced to serve at least 14 years in prison.
Christopher Thomas Lynch, better known to local audiences as Pasha Nicole, broke down as he entered his guilty plea.
"I'm just so sorry," he said, sobbing, at the Douglas County Superior Court hearing covered by Channel 2 Action News. "I was wrong, so wrong."
Lynch pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, one count of pimping a victim under the age of 18 and one count of pandering by compulsion, according to Andrew Agan, spokesman for the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office.
Judge David Emerson sentenced Lynch to 30 years, with 14 years of that sentence to be served in prison.
“Lynch will also be required to render truthful testimony against any other defendants in this case, including Steven Lemery. We anticipate Lemery going to trial later this year,” Agan said in an email to the AJC.
Lemery, who is Lynch’s former roommate, is charged with aggravated child molestation, human trafficking, child molestation, enticing a child for indecent purposes and pandering by compulsion.
Lemery danced under the name Steven Lang at B.J. Rooster's on Cheshire Bridge Road. He was targeted by investigators in January 2011 after an alleged 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. Lynch was arrested and charged in March 2011.
The suspects lived in a home off Chapel Hill Road in Douglasville.
Most of their 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.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Rachel Ackley.
-- Staff writer Christian Boone contributed to this article.
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