ONTARIO -- An alleged pimp stands accused of committing numerous crimes against a 17-year-old girl and a 30-year-old woman who police believe he was grooming to work as prostitutes for him.
Tremaine Ulysses Smiler, 38, of Ontario, allegedly raped both victims and tortured them by burning them with a hot iron.
The 30-year-old woman's lips were disfigured when Smiler burned her face with a clothing iron, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing from an Ontario police officer.
Smiler's prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Karen Schmauss, said today that Smiler has been convicted of similar acts against women in the past, and could face life in prison if found guilty in his current case.
"If he's not stopped, he'll just do it again and again," Schmauss said.
Smiler remains jailed in lieu of $2 million bail at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga. He is next due April 15 in West Valley Superior Court.
The 18 felony counts Smiler currently faces stem from alleged acts in July 2009 in Anaheim and Ontario.
The 17-year-old girl told police she met Smiler that month while both were living at the Econo Lodge in Ontario at 724 S. San Antonio Ave.
The girl said she and Smiler had consensual sex twice in Ontario before he took her to Anaheim with a prostitute, where the group spent several days in a motel.
According to Officer Ryan Ronveaux, one of Smiler's reasons for making the trip was to teach the 17-year-old about the prostitution trade.
"To observe how the prostitutes would flag down your John Does, each sex act that prostitutes do, how much it cost, and what exactly what went on with it," Ronveaux testified at a preliminary hearing in September.
While the girl and Smiler were in Anaheim, he allegedly used pliers to pinch one of her nipples and threatened to harm her and her family. He later forced her to have sex.
"You better make me happy, or your kids are going to get hurt," Smiler told the girl, who has two children, according to Ronveaux's testimony.
Later during their trip to Anaheim, Smiler became angry at the girl when he saw her talking to another pimp, Ronveaux testified.
"He plugged a hair straightener into an electrical outlet and heated it up," the officer testified. "... He proceeded to apply the hot straightener to the victim's pubic area."
The girl contacted police about three days after returning to Ontario.
On July 27, 2009, the 30-year-old woman, who was an ex-prostitute and transient, met Smiler at about 1 a.m. in the area of Euclid Avenue and Philadelphia Street in Ontario.
Smiler invited her to a nearby home where he was staying.
The woman said she worried Smiler was a pimp, but she accepted his invitation because she was desperate to shower and wash her clothes, according to testimony at Smiler's preliminary hearing from Officer Gregory Clinton.
While she was with Smiler at the house, he burned her butt and face with a hot clothing iron. Perhaps the woman's worst injury was a burn to her lips, which left them badly mangled, Clinton testified.
"It was burned skin," he said. "It was disfigured. Her lips were disfigured."
Schmauss said the victims' allegations are similar to Smiler's past acts of violence against women.
In 1998, he was sentenced to four years in prison in Victorville for torturing and sodomizing his girlfriend, who he accused of cheating on him. He burned the woman's nose with a hot iron, Schmauss said.
He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2004 for forcing a woman in Upland to have sex at knifepoint, Schmauss said.
In Smiler's current case, Schmauss said she doesn't expect to offer him a plea agreement because no offer would carry a sentence shorter than life.
"It's going to go to trial, because we're not making any offers," Schmauss said. "My offer is life in prison."