Jury convicts four sex traffickers on all 16 counts

A Barrie jury has found sex traffickers Oneil Hopkinson, Jashyna Singh, Joseph Carvalho and Tyrone Dias guilty on human trafficking and sexual assault counts.

Warning: This article contains disturbing content that may be triggering.

A Barrie jury has found sex traffickers Oneil Hopkinson, Jashyna Singh, Joseph Carvalho and Tyrone Dias guilty on all 16 human trafficking and sexual assault counts.

After hearing 280 pages of instructions from the judge over two days, the jury convicted the four accused of exploiting sex workers in Barrie and Innisfil three years ago. Hopkinson, Singh, Carvalho, and Dias had been arrested as part of Project Chameleon, led by South Simcoe police who revealed a woman first came forward in the spring to report she was being sex trafficked.

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Over the course of the eight-week trial presided over by Justice Jill Cameron, the court heard from several women who testified about selling their bodies while working under the control of Dias, 30, and Singh, 32, whom they said ran the operation, as others hung around homes and helped traffic the sex workers in hotel rooms and houses that included one on Yonge Street in Innisfil that was raided by police in November 2023.

Witnesses testified seeing guns and drugs in the Innisfil homes where they worked while being delivered to and from clients by Carvalho, 46, whom police said installed security cameras to watch over the women. The court heard Carvalho admitted to posting an ad for one of the women.

The Crown told the jury the women were advertised for sexual services, and the earnings were taken by Dias and his co-accused.

Hopkinson, 40, was convicted of sexually assaulting two of the women, though some of his human trafficking counts were dropped during trial after one of his lawyers, Nabeel Sheiban, sought a directed verdict from Justice Cameron.

Singh, Dias and Hopkinson had been in custody for more than three years while Carvalho was out on bail. He was taken into custody following conviction when Justice Cameron told Carvalho he no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence to justify being out on bail.

Another man pleaded guilty to trafficking women and one count of sexual assault. He described himself as being security for the women, ensuring they weren’t hurt by clients at homes and hotels where they’d make about two to three-thousand dollars a day while being supplied drugs by Dias, who was represented by experienced defence lawyer Marvin Shifman.

The convicted sex traffickers will return to court Monday to set a date for a sentencing hearing.