GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — In a Kent County courtroom Thursday afternoon, a woman sat anxiously in the gallery, a relative’s protective arm cradling her shoulders.
“I feel like I needed to hear it to get started on putting him in my past,” the woman told Target 8, referring to her ex-boyfriend’s plea hearing.
Jonathan Didyk, 45, pleaded guilty Thursday to two felonies, including prostitution/pandering and prostitution/accepting earnings.
Both counts are 20-year felonies, but under a plea agreement — and state sentencing guidelines — Didyk should get 12 to 24 months in jail when a judge sentences him in early August.
“I’m relieved I finally got to hear him say he did it,” Didyk’s ex-girlfriend, who did not want to be identified, told Target 8.
In November, Grandville police arrested Didyk in the parking lot of the Rodeway Inn off Chicago Drive.
They’d received a tip that the Hudsonville man was forcing his long-term girlfriend into prostitution to pay their bills.
Didyk, according to court records, posted intimate photos of his girlfriend on skipthegames.com, an online escort service.
He would then pose as her to set up dates with men and direct her where and when to meet the customers.
A probable cause affidavit filed in Grandville District Court said the prostitution happened over a nine-month period.
Didyk's victim told police she feared Didyk, who was "regularly aggressive" toward her and the couple's children.
In one alleged text exchange between Didyk and his girlfriend, Didyk warned her that if they didn't make rent, it would be her fault.
Didyk’s lawyer, Charles Clapp, told Target 8 his client would have no comment on the case.
Angelica Ferrer, a victim witness coordinator with the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office, said the Didyk case shows that Michigan has made progress in a system that didn't always treat sex workers as the victims they often are.
“Before, we were only punishing the person who was engaging in the prostitution and not looking at the dynamics and the totality of circumstances that brought them to that place,” explained Ferrer from her office in the downtown Grand Rapids courthouse. “And I think that is still a conversation a lot of people have a hard time with because they don't understand the dynamics of power and control.
"I think it's still difficult for people to understand that, even if you don't have a gun to your head or even if someone isn't physically assaulting you every day, you still have that force on you, that pressure on you, and you get into a situation that you don’t feel like you can get out of,” Ferrer continued. “But I think our hospitals, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, people — they understand those dynamics a little bit more, especially in the last five years.”
If you or someone you know is being victimized, you can call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888.373.7888.