Suspected Oakland pimp, teen charged with robbing and macing 69-year-old man

OAKLAND A man and a young woman have been charged in connection with a violent robbery in a local inn which police say started with a prostitution transaction Nicholas Lewis and Janiya Brown Lee were charged with robbery and elder abuse while Brown Lee faces an additional felony charge for allegedly spraying the -year-old victim with pepper spray The two were charged in February and held to answer at a March preliminary hearing records show A trial date has not yet been set RELATED He took a prostitute to an Oakland motel Next thing he knew he was being robbed Police say that the alleged victim was attacked at the Tour Inn on the block of West MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland on the night of Jan On the stand at the preliminary hearing the man denied he was paying for sex instead stating that Brown Lee flagged me down and inquired for a ride to the hotel because it was an emergency When they got there he claimed Brown Lee grabbed at his belt buckle but he protested telling her I m a married man a transcript of the hearing says She tried to give me various oral sex and I narrated her No ' he testified And then she went and knocked on the door And the guy came in And that s when I started getting beat up The man was sprayed in the face punched several times and robbed for according to court records Neither defense lawyer argued against the charges in court and a judge held both defendants to answer without commenting on the development At the hearing Brown Lee s lawyer appeared to cast blame on Lewis stating that Brown Lee has no criminal record and was caught up in a lifestyle she doesn t want to continue Both she and Lewis are out of jail with a judge freeing Brown Lee and Lewis posting for his release court records show This is a situation where I think she was being somewhat manipulated into doing what she was doing at the time of this happening Brown Lee s lawyer Joe Mastro reported at the hearing She s young she s impressionable After the hearing police arrested and booked Lewis on a warrant for allegedly pimping Brown Lee records show He was subsequently issued from jail again and hasn t been charged with pimping or pandering records show But police say that that Lewis who was convicted of pimping in Orange County in is well known to vice investigators in Oakland He has been picked up in other pandering investigations and remains the subject of a pandering and pimping probe A review of his and Brown Lee s phones yielded messages where they discuss prostitution and bicker about it bureaucrats noted I invariably have hella prostitutes I m not these lil boys sic Lewis allegedly wrote in one text during an argument with Brown Lee I m a real pimp you can quit with all that