“You never show back up,” he explained to one of the defendants who seemed stunned by the tough bond policy for a crime that rarely brings more than a few months in jail.

Oakland, Calif., residents Diamond Deshea Hardaway, 20, and Teeauna Monea Patterson, 22, and Hayward, Calif., resident Malikia Monica Mackey, 22, are due back in court April 21.

Upstairs in Circuit Court, Feinmel described the brutal experience of a young Tidewater woman who huddled outside the courtroom with her mother and caregivers from the Gray Haven Project, which cares for abused women and prostitutes. She had promised to testify if necessary to help convict an alleged pimp, William Mark James, 27. He described himself in court as a restaurant cook.

“She’s having a very tough time” with what happened to her, Feinmel explained after court, stressing that the Henrico effort also is focusing on restoring the lives of young woman victimized by sex-trafficking enterprises.

James, though, pleaded no contest to multiple counts linked to a prostitution scheme that brought him and the victim last June to hotels and motels near the West Broad Street-Staples Mill Road area. An agreement to drop an abduction charge helped spare the woman from having to confront James in court, Feinmel said.