A man described by authorities as a serial rapist is on trial in the violent sexual assaults of five women in Birmingham in a span of 13 months.

Johnathan Fitzgerald Lockett, who goes by the name Master Lockett, met the majority of the victims on escort websites, sexually assaulted them, and sometimes robbed them, officials say. He faces charges of sodomy, sexual torture, rape, robbery and theft.

Most of the women were prostitutes, but Jefferson County prosecutors said that doesn’t mean they weren’t victims of sex crimes.

“One of the most vulnerable groups in society are women who are down on their luck, who make decisions out of necessity, who may engage in sex work in order to make ends meet,’’ Jefferson County Deputy District Attorney Isabella Colombo told jurors in opening statements Tuesday.

“But society thinks their actions are immoral, that they cannot be victims of sexual assault,’’ Colombo said. “Those actions, those thoughts, are why this defendant targeted that specific group of women.”

A jury of eight men and six women heard graphic details of the five attacks, which included one of the victims being anally raped with the handgun stolen from a previous victim.

Lockett’s attorney, however, told jurors that what prosecutors didn’t tell them was that some of the victims knew Lockett, or were familiar with him.

“These women would advertise for services online. They were prostitutes. They were drug addicts,’’ defense attorney Jason Wollitz said in his opening statements. “They knew they could get the drugs they needed from Mr. Lockett and went to him on a regular basis.”

“These are no one-offs as the state would have you believe,’’ Wollitz said.

The case is being tried before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Shanta Craig Owens.

Birmingham police in November 2020 first announced the arrest of Lockett, who is now 43. More women came forward and Lockett was eventually indicted on roughly 30 charges involving 12 sexual assault victims.

The attacks stopped on Nov. 2, 2020, when a victim was able to get his license plate and investigators were able to identify Lockett. Ultimately, Jefferson County’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, also known as SAKI, helped link Lockett to all of the sex crime victims.

SAKI takes in-depth and comprehensive looks at sexual assault across the county – which includes 27 jurisdictions and two district attorney’s offices.

Lockett is only on trial this week on attacks of five of 12 women he is charged with assaulting.

Colombo took jurors through each of those attacks.

In an Oct. 28, 2019 attack, a victim who worked as a dancer at a gentleman’s club in Birmingham was finding it difficult to make ends meet.

A friend suggested that she could make additional money by posting an ad on an escort website.

“So, she does it,’’ Colombo said. “Not because she wants to, but she feels she has to.”

Prosecutors say Lockett was the man who responded to her ad, though the victim did not know his name. They began to communicate through Lockett’s TextApp number and agreed to meet in the 7800 block of First Avenue South in East Lake.

The victim thought they would go into the house there for their “date,” but instead Lockett took her to the back of the house.

The victim told him she had a gun and that angered him, Colombo said. He shoved her, grabbed her by the hair, and then rummaged through her purse, taking out her purple and black handgun.

The suspect then raped her both vaginally and anally, the prosecutor said.

“(The victim) is petrified, she’s scared, she’s left violated,’’ Colombo said, “and all she can think about is at some point this has to stop.”

The victim was then forced to perform oral sex on him before he left.

The victim called 911 and eventually was taken to the crisis center where she underwent sexual assault testing. DNA was obtained and came back to only one man.

In December 2019, another woman began communicating with someone who authorities said was Lockett on the Skip the Games Escort App.

“She is struggling with addiction,’’ Colombo said. “She is desperate for cash because her habit is expensive.”

They agreed to meet on Dec. 6 in the 7800 block of First Avenue South.

When the victim arrives, the suspect tells her they have to have their “date” in the garage because his family was inside the residence.

She performed oral sex on him, and they engaged in consensual vaginal and anal sex, Colombo said.

The had previously agreed on $100 for 15 minutes, so when Lockett begins to go over 15 minutes time, she tells him he will have to pay more.

As she got ready to leave, he told the victim, “You’re not going anywhere (expletive.)”

“There’s a gun to her face,’’ the prosecutor said. “She knows right then and there what she has to do. She has to comply.”

He rapes her vaginally and anally. With a gun to her back, he is saying, you get to leave when I tell you to leave. I’m not finished yet.”

Columbo said he raped her again. When he finished, he grabbed her purse and they struggled.

Lockett is accused of then beating her and pistol whipping her. He allegedly fled with her purse.

That victim was taken to the hospital where she underwent emergency eye surgery. She was left with permanent eye damage.

On April 3rd, another woman who is struggling in life learned about the Skip the Games app and, at the suggestion of a friend, posted an ad.

Prosecutors say Lockett responded and provided her with his TextApp number. They agreed to meet, again $100 for 15 minutes.

The victim picked up Lockett and he directed her to an alley in East Lake. They got into the back seat of the car, and she asked him to put on a condom.

Colombo said Lockett’s tone and demeanor then shifted. “All of the sudden,’’ the prosecutor said, “he has a purple and black handgun in her face.”

The suspect had vaginal and anal sex with the victim.

“He’s filming her, taking pictures and she remembers him calling someone giving them her location, saying that he can do exactly what he just did to her,” Colombo said.

When he was done, he took her cell phone and her ID and threw it. The victim was able to find her cell phone and call 911.

“She’s petrified, she’s embarrassed, she feels like this is her own fault,’’ Colombo said.

The victim underwent sexual assault testing, and again DNA was recovered and belongs to just one man.

On July 5, 2020, a woman who was living out of her car was at the Sunoco gas station on Birmingham’s east side needing parts for her car.

A man in a black Nissan Versa approached her and they talked. He told her he is an Uber drive and will take her to Auto Zone to get parts for her car.

While driving, allegedly Lockett told her his wife gave him money to have sex with other women, and he told the victim he likes anal sex, Colombo said.

He got into the back seat with her and raped her. They with to a second location, the prosecutor said, where Lockett sodomized the woman with the purple and black gun he stole from the earlier victim.

He left her there, taking with him her purse which contained her car keys, wallet, and cell phone.

She walked to the closes gas station and called 911.

On Nov. 2, 2020, yet another victim found herself in a difficult situation, Colombo said. She was a certified nail technician but with COVID lockdowns in full effect, her business had taken a hit.

“She could no longer make ends meet,’’ Colombo said.

A friend told her about Skip the Games and she, too, posted an ad.

Lockett responded and they agreed to vaginal sex. He picked her up and she got into the back seat, where the suspect drove her to an apartment building.

Instead of going inside, Colombo said, Lockett told her they’re going to have their “date” on the steps.

“Red flags are going off,’’ Colombo says.

The suspect then is accused of raping her anally. Colombo said the victim was “humiliated, embarrassed, and violated,’’ and begged him to take her home.

But the suspect said he needed his car washed and took her with him.

She begged to go home and allegedly Lockett dragged her out of the car and choke dher. Three people witnessed the assault and came to her aid after Lockett left.

The victim was able to get the license plate. That led Birmingham police to the registered owner, who was Lockett’s girlfriend, Colombo said.

A search warrant on the car turned up 10 different cell phones. A second search warrant at the apartment of Lockett and his girlfriend turned up more than 30 other cell phones, including one of the sexual assault victims.

The girlfriend, Colombo said, later gave police more evidence, which included the cell phone of another victim.

The prosecutor said analysis of Lockett’s cell phone by Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office Investigator Ben Short put Lockett’s cell phone at all five locations of the sexual assaults.

“For 13 months, Master Lockett sought out, victimized, assaulted those five women,’’ Columbo said. “It was finally over.”

“As Master Lockett raped and sodomized these women, they pleaded for their lives. They asked that it all be over,’’ she said. “But it fell on deaf ears. He could hear them, he just did not listen.”

Wollitz, in his opening statements, said the case is not what it seems.

“You heard the state go into some detail about each one of these assaults. What you haven’t heard the state go into detail about is the conversations that took place prior to them meeting,’’ he said.

“You haven’t heard the state talk to you about that for several of these women, this was not the first time that they had met Mr. Lockett,’’ Wollitz said.

“What you have not heard the state talk about is that Mr. Lockett was known to provide drugs, loan money, do other things when people were short on cash and that they would give them their cell phones to hold as collateral.”

“That is what happened in a lot of those cases,’’ he said.

Wollitz said he asked the jurors during selection whether they could wait, withhold judgement, and not come to a conclusion until after they heard Lockett testify, which he is planning to do.

Some of the victims, he said, gave Lockett their cell phones or debit cards as collateral to get cash or drugs from him. They were upset because some the money he gave them, Wollitz said, was counterfeit.

“They had been threatening to go to the police and accuse him of rape and robbery if he didn’t give them real money,’’ Wollitz told jurors.

“A couple of these women were beaten up by their pimps when they returned with counterfeit money,’’ he said. “There’s a lot more to this story than just what you heard in the last 15 or 20 minutes (from prosecutors).”

“All of these charges arise from incidents where there was an agreement of prostitution,’’ Wollitz said.

“None of these are jump out of the bushes, tackle these women. Every one of these charges arises from some type of prostitution agreement and that’s important because the state would have you believe by calling him a predator that he’s just out there seeking opportunity to find some vulnerable woman he could attack and that is not what this case is about. “

“These cases are about women who knew perfectly well what they were getting into,’’ he said, “and why they were contacting Mr. Lockett.”

One of the victims took the stand Tuesday, and her 911 call was played in court.

She tearfully recounted the events of that night. A video of her attack that prosecutors said was recorded by Lockett on his cell phone was also shown in court.

The victim could be heard saying, “Oh God, please no.”

Testimony will resume Wednesday.