ANTIOCH — A 30-year-old man recently charged with human trafficking here is believed to be the intended target in a 2015 shooting that claimed the life of a teen girl and stemmed from a dispute between two pimps, authorities revealed last week.
Cedric West, of Antioch, is facing felony charges of human trafficking; an enhancement alleges he beat his victim, a woman known in court records only as “Jane Doe,” with a bottle. The charging records he “inflicted great bodily injury” in a November 2018 attack on Doe, though details of the case haven’t been made public.
According to authorities, West was the intended victim of an August 2015 shooting in Oakland, in which a 16-year-old girl was killed. Samuel S. Freeman, 34, of Oakland, was charged with murder in the shooting.
Authorities say West and Freeman were two rival pimps, and that their problem started when Freeman began trafficking a teen girl who had previously been with West. As a result, West robbed the girl, prompting Freeman to later fire at him with an assault rifle.
Police said at the time that Freeman confessed to the shooting. He is currently in prison, serving a life sentence with a parole date set for 2040, public records show.
West was known to live in both Antioch and Oakland, and had prior several contacts with police in Contra Costa in 2015. In January of that year, he and his brother were arrested in connection with a drug trafficking investigation. Several months later, he was arrested on suspicion of unlawful sex with a 16-year-old girl, but never charged, court records show.
The charging records allege West has a prior conviction for robbery in 2010, which will add time to his sentence if he’s convicted of the trafficking count. Jail records indicated West is in the Martinez Detention Facility in lieu of $380,000 bail.