It seems to me that DeWayne Eugene Hopkins already had been given a significant break. Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, the 27-year-old Salt Lake man's sentence for sex trafficking underage girls had been reduced from 10 years to five years.

At sentencing, U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart reduced the five-year term by another six months, noting that he had debated between the facts that Hopkins "trafficked girls as sex workers before one was old enough to drive," but he "treated them well," according to the Deseret News account of the sentencing hearing.

With all due respect, your honor, I fail to understand how trafficking what prosecutor Scott Romney described as a "vulnerable class of women" — poor, from broken homes, lacking high-school educations and underage — constitutes treating them "well."

Hopkins and co-defendant Julia Jane Young, 19, were arrested in May 2008 for recruiting underage girls to perform "erotic massage" and other sex acts in Salt Lake area hotel rooms. According to an indictment filed in March, Hopkins recruited three underage girls and encouraged them to recruit others. He advertised their services on the Internet, arranged for hotel rooms, advised them what to charge and took half of the money they made.

Hopkins' defense attorney, Lynn Donaldson, said his client's actions weren't as serious as others involved in sex trafficking. For instance, Hopkins wasn't aggressive or threatening, the defense attorney said. Moreover, Hopkins didn't take advantage of these women physically and didn't tell them how to dress, nor did he have any experience in this particular field, Donaldson said.

Donaldson noted, "He wasn't at some youth club trolling (for the girls)."

As if any of this should make a difference.

I covered courts long enough in my reporting career to understand that the accused are entitled to a zealous defense. Donaldson clearly provided that. And I understand that plea agreements are necessary to keep the judicial system from grinding to a halt. But why should someone whose sentence had already been cut by half receive additional consideration, particularly when you consider the emotional, physical and sexual degradation experienced by the underage girls in the sex trade?

No, this wasn't the stuff of an international sex-trafficking operation where young girls were kidnapped or sent away from impoverished families with the promise of honest work or even the hope of education, only to be imprisoned, drugged and sexually exploited. If you need a sense of what that looks like, rent the 2008 motion picture "Taken."