Prosecutor cross-examines accused pimp Steven Gilbert

Steven Gilbert faced a fierce cross-examination by a prosecutor in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on Thursday after testifying in his own defense for several hours Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. The 36-year-old Elyria man denied trafficking numerous Lorain County women for sex over the past several years, allegedly keeping them addicted to his heroin and crack cocaine while also buying their silence with threats of violence. Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Matt Kern sternly questioned the admitted drug dealer on the stand, picking apart Gilbert's testimony and statements using evidence presented by the prosecution during nearly two weeks of trial. Many of Gilbert's answers were some form of "I don't remember." Faced with difficult or incriminating questions, Gilbert frequently claimed he didn't remember — even as he testified to specific dates when he met or started dating his numerous girlfriends, the date he first got his state ID, or how much he put as a down payment on each of the three Mercedes he owned. Sometimes "I heard a voice in my head" while allegedly committing crimes, Gilbert testified. "Is it a female voice? A male voice?" Kern asked. "Does it sound like you?" "It wasn't me. It was a third party. It was a voice in my head," Gilbert said. At times, jurors laughed or smiled as Gilbert answered questions and tried to defend himself. Criminal defendants typically are given the opportunity to wear civilian clothing and not jail uniforms in court. Gilbert chose to wear his striped jail uniform at trial. Kern said Gilbert's courtroom behavior was manipulative. He played a recorded jail phone call between Gilbert and Gilbert's mother for the jury. In it, Gilbert said: "I don't wanna look nice. I wanna look rough going to court." Gilbert also tried to manipulate guards at the Lorain County Jail into getting favorable treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kern alleged. "All I gotta do is say this, this and that, and things go your way," he said in a jail phone call to an ex-girlfriend in August 2021 that Kern played for the jury. When it came to the women in his life, Gilbert testified they frequently talked about earning money from seeing men for sex — sometimes called doing "moves" or "licks" — but didn't direct or supervise that behavior. So how did Gilbert know the individual names of more than a dozen so-called "licks" he mentioned in jail calls and letters, Kern asked. "I don't know how accurate I was," Gilbert claimed. "You knew a lot about how much the girls made" and the names of their clients, Kern told him. "I was around them for four years," Gilbert said. "You'd know a lot, too. I never knew it was about prostitution because I never saw them do it." Gilbert testified he was joking in a letter to an ex-girlfriend in which he tried to persuade her to turn to prostitution to pay his bond. He later admitted on the stand to "encouraging" her to sell herself for sex to pay his bond, but "not knowingly." In another jail phone call played for the jury, Gilbert instructed the same ex-girlfriend to "pour peroxide" on an infected wound on the leg of another ex-girlfriend he had allegedly raped and forced into prostitution. "I don't think that's torture. That's cleaning," Gilbert said when asked about the alleged threat on Thursday. "So you're a humanitarian, is that it?" Kern asked, sarcastically. Kern also asked about a situation where Gilbert promised to help an ex-girlfriend and alleged victim get medical treatment. Gilbert had flashed a stack of $60,000 in his Facebook photos. Might that have bought her treatment for a life-threatening infection, Kern asked. "No, because I owed it to Yeyo" — a Cleveland man who supplied him with drugs, Gilbert testified. Gilbert also was caught in an apparent lie after testifying Wednesday that he was sexually abused as a child. He told the jury that, but mentioned the lie in a jailhouse letter to one of his ex-girlfriends. "This here gonna help my case," Gilbert wrote in the letter, talking about the molestation allegations he made. "It's all lies but play along," he wrote to her. Even Gilbert's family appeared to be a target for him. In letters and recorded phone calls, he threatened to have three of them killed by a hit man for $15,000 or said he'd do it himself if his mother didn't take the blame for his crimes. "I wasn't in my right state of mind," Gilbert testified, even as he admitted he had "tried to sound convincing." "Fifteen thousand, that's really cheap," Gilbert said. Gilbert claimed he's Muslim, allowing him multiple marriages as long as he takes care of his women. He has never been legally married, not to any of the women he was with, he admitted on the stand. Kern asked Gilbert if the women he allegedly trafficked were Gilbert's "personal property." Gilbert said they weren't. Kern then played a September 2022 phone call Gilbert made to an ex-girlfriend from prison. "You're Steven's property, that's why you've got 'STEVEN' (tattooed) on you. You belong to me," Gilbert told her on the phone. "I was being sarcastic," Gilbert claimed. "I'm not a pimp." Gilbert also testified to hopes to get out of prison early from a 10- to 15-year prison sentence he's serving after being convicted of drug trafficking based on an arrest by the Lorain County Drug Task Force and Elyria police in mid-2021. "I'm just following the law," Gilbert testified. But selling drugs and carrying guns came with the territory after the youth he spent in Elyria, he testified. "Yes I got them (guns) through drug sales but they were never used in no crime," Gilbert said. As a convicted felon, "I wasn't allowed to have drugs or guns. I grew up in poverty. I don't have no other way," he said. Why testify, Kern asked Gilbert. "I want them to know my side, not what you're trying to make it look like," Gilbert said. "For once, you're not in control, Mr. Gilbert," Kern told him. Attorney Steve Albenze called no other witnesses in his client's defense Thursday and rested his case. Prosecutors on Wednesday dropped 17 out of the 58 felony charges they had filed against Gilbert. He has pleaded not guilty to rape, kidnapping, sexual battery, human trafficking, compelling and promoting prostitution, racketeering and money laundering, among others. Those charges were dropped because four of Gilbert's nine alleged victims did not testify at trial. Judge James Miraldi said closing arguments would be heard today. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.