MARTINEZ — At the start of his opening statement Monday, prosecutor Chad Mahalich didn’t have to say a word.

He stared sternly at the jury for a few seconds, then simply pressed play on his laptop computer, allowing the voice of human trafficking and murder defendant Deandre Lewis to fill the courtroom.

“Where’s my mother (expletive) money?” Lewis could be heard demanding from his jail cell, during a 2013 recorded call. He directed the person on the other line, his co-defendant Rachel Smith, to “put the (expletive) on the phone right now.”

Lewis then demanded money, and brushed off the woman’s excuse that it was in her bank account the last time she checked it and that she didn’t know what happened.

“Who the (expletive) do you think you’re lying to right now? Banks don’t (expletive) up like that,” Lewis said. He then directed Smith to “cut her hair. I want that (expletive) bald-headed. Take a pic.”

“I wanna hear screaming and all that (expletive),” Lewis told Smith. After Smith sliced the woman dozens of times, cutting between her toes and partially scalping her, Lewis got back on the phone and told the woman she was “worser(sic) than dog (expletive).”

After the call was done, Mahalich finally began to speak.

“This is a snapshot of the evil you’re going to hear in the next few weeks,” he said.

In an unusual move, the defense opted not to make an opening statement at the beginning of the trial, and will instead present a synopsis of its case after the prosecution rests.

Lewis is charged with 40 felonies, including murder by way of a coerced suicide, human trafficking, conspiracy, rape, false imprisonment, torture, aggravated mayhem, assault with a firearm, kidnapping, pandering a minor and other sexual assault charges.

The case against him includes allegations that he forced women to get tattoos of his nickname, “Dre,” as a form of branding. Mahalich said Lewis had a “sadistic desire to force women into sexual servitude” and that his pimping activities dated back to at least 2009.

Mahalich showed jurors photos of more than a half-dozen women he said were all victims of Lewis in one way or another. One said she was working as a prostitute when Lewis showed up at a hotel room posing as a john, then proceeded to pistol-whip her and force her into his human-trafficking ring.

Lewis sent women all over the Bay Area and as far south as Los Angeles, Mahalich said, adding that Lewis was a charmer but would “get violent” if he was disobeyed. He came up with creative ways to earn money, including having sex workers delude an 82-year-old man into believing he was dating them, then taking tens of thousands from him, Mahalich said.

When Lewis was arrested on gun charges in 2013, he continued to run the trafficking ring from jail, with the help of Smith, whom Mahalich described as Lewis’ “bottom girl,” or “top prostitute.” In 2014, when he directed Smith to stab and scalp the woman, it was over a money dispute, Mahalich said.

Mahalich described several rapes at gunpoint, and said Lewis had ordered other women to put guns to their heads and pull the trigger. He said that in November 2012, Lewis directed a woman — known in court records as Jane Doe 4 — to do exactly that, and that she complied. Gunshot residue was found on her and Lewis’ hands, and prosecutors believe he either stood next to her while she shot herself, or was the one who actually pulled the trigger.

The evidence against Lewis includes the recorded jail calls, ads on sites known to facilitate prostitution, photos — including one of Lewis wearing a hat that has “pimp” written on it — and the testimony of several former sex workers. Mahalich said he wasn’t sure what they would testify to.

“Even to this day, many are still scared of the defendant,” Mahalich said. “Many don’t want to be here.”

Testimony began Monday morning, and the trial is expected to last well into 2018.