The prosecution didn’t mince words in describing how Charles Cocklin treated two women it says he recruited to be prostitutes.
"He tried to recruit the first victim into prostitution, when she refused he threatened her. He threatened to kidnap her. He threatened to cut her up and kill her," deputy prosecutor Thalia Murphy said.
Cocklin’s attorney claims his client is a legitimate business man.
"The girls that were involved in this case were working for him in those businesses. He was not aware of the fact that they were prostituting," Cocklin’s attorney John Schum said.
Cocklin pleaded guilty to seven charges ranging from kidnapping to assault to promoting prostitution.
Cocklin was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with the Hawaii Parole Board to set his minimum time served.
"The defendant poses a danger to the women in this community, or to any woman who are within striking distance of him. The defendant is a pimp, there is no doubt about that," Murphy said.
Cocklin has been in prison for more than three years, and is actually suing the state for an incident that happened while at the Oahu Community Correctional Center in 2010.
"Him waking up one night and his cellmate, who was a former A.C.O. That was incarcerated there hanging in the cell. And he was yelling and screaming for the guards to come let him out, to get the body out, and they ignored it," Schum said.
That lawsuit is pending.
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See the original article at: KHON2 Developing Stories
