Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #177 Jason Flom with Justin Moore and Crystal Trevino on Zephi Trevino
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Zeffi Travigno was a normal teenage girl growing up outside
- 0:06Speaker 1: of Dallas, Texas, with a life that revolved around family, church,
- 0:10Speaker 1: and softball. When Zephy got to high school, though, a
- 0:13Speaker 1: boyfriend introduced her to drugs and then broke her heart.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Then nineteen year old Philip Baldenegro swooped in through social
- 0:21Speaker 1: media to prey on this vulnerable high school sophomore. Baldenegro
- 0:25Speaker 1: introduced himself to Zephi's parents as a friend of Zephet's
- 0:28Speaker 1: from school, and soon used psychological manipulation, violence, and intimidation
- 0:33Speaker 1: to drag Zephy into the dark underworld of sex trafficking.
- 0:37Speaker 1: Alarming changes in Zeffi's behavior prompted Henry and Crystal Travigno
- 0:41Speaker 1: to install a tracking app on their daughter's phone, but
- 0:44Speaker 1: this didn't stop Baldenegro from using Zefpfi's body and her
- 0:47Speaker 1: misery for his profit. Then, on August third, twenty nineteen,
- 0:52Speaker 1: two men were lured to an apartment with the promise
- 0:55Speaker 1: of sex with Zephi. The men were robbed instead by
- 0:58Speaker 1: Baldenegro and an accomplice, and a fight broke out, resulting
- 1:02Speaker 1: in Baldenegro shooting and killing one of the would be
- 1:04Speaker 1: child rapists. This is going to be a first for
- 1:07Speaker 1: this podcast, an interview that takes place before trial, before
- 1:11Speaker 1: a grave mistake is made, where I speak with Zeppi's lawyer,
- 1:15Speaker 1: Justin Moore and her mother, Crystal Travino. Zeffi is currently
- 1:20Speaker 1: out of Juvie awaiting trial while the Dallas County District
- 1:23Speaker 1: Attorney tries to charge her for her sex traffickers crime,
- 1:28Speaker 1: compounding what has already been an unbelievably tragic experience by
- 1:32Speaker 1: potentially sending Zephi to spend the rest of her life
- 1:36Speaker 1: in prison. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Plomm. Welcome
- 1:53Speaker 1: back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me. I'm
- 1:57Speaker 1: your host, of course, and today we are going telling
- 2:00Speaker 1: a story that is happening in real time and beyond that,
- 2:04Speaker 1: it's a story that is so disturbing. You know, I
- 2:07Speaker 1: think that anyone who's a parent while then may be
- 2:09Speaker 1: hard to hear. It's something that you need to hear.
- 2:12Speaker 1: There are going to be action steps at the end
- 2:14Speaker 1: of it, and there are things we can do to
- 2:16Speaker 1: make a difference. We're going to be telling the story
- 2:18Speaker 1: today of a young teenage girl named Zeffi Travino who
- 2:23Speaker 1: was sex trafficked then re victimized by the authorities at
- 2:27Speaker 1: a time when they should have and I believe did
- 2:30Speaker 1: know better. First, I want to introduce to you an
- 2:32Speaker 1: emerging giant in the defense community. Justin Moore, who is
- 2:37Speaker 1: Zeffi's lawyer, is here. So Justin, welcome to Ronfuel Conviction.
- 2:40Speaker 1: Thank you, Jyson. And today with us is one of
- 2:42Speaker 1: the most courageous and strong women I've ever had the
- 2:47Speaker 1: privilege to know. Zeffi's mom, Crystal Travino, is here, so Crystal,
- 2:51Speaker 1: thank you for being here with us today.
- 2:53Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Jason.
- 2:55Speaker 1: So, this is a story of a young girl from
- 2:59Speaker 1: I'm going to call it a normal family, right, whatever
- 3:02Speaker 1: normal is. This is a nuclear family in a town
- 3:05Speaker 1: in Texas outside of Dallas.
- 3:07Speaker 2: This took place in Grand Priri, Texas, which is between
- 3:10Speaker 2: Dallas and Fort Worth, just a suburb city.
- 3:13Speaker 1: Tell us about Zeffie growing up and about the family
- 3:16Speaker 1: situation prior to this disastrous chain of events.
- 3:20Speaker 2: Like you said, we're a normal family. She was into sports, softball,
- 3:25Speaker 2: specifically volleyball. She loves music, she loves to sing. She
- 3:31Speaker 2: was just kind of one of those kids that people
- 3:34Speaker 2: were drawn to, very charismatic, laughing, having fun, and really
- 3:40Speaker 2: supported by her siblings. You know, she has three older siblings,
- 3:44Speaker 2: two sisters and a brother, her church family and the community,
- 3:48Speaker 2: my husband and myself softball coaches, so just what I
- 3:52Speaker 2: would consider everybody's normal family. And as she entered into
- 3:58Speaker 2: high school a young man, her freshman year introduced her
- 4:02Speaker 2: to drugs and a toxic relationship, and so Zephie struggled
- 4:08Speaker 2: with that her freshman year. Going into her sophomore year,
- 4:12Speaker 2: which was her sixteenth birthday year, we saw so many changes,
- 4:17Speaker 2: not just physically, mentally starting to have a lot of
- 4:20Speaker 2: anxiety and withdraw from her family, and to see her
- 4:24Speaker 2: sleep a lot, and to see her ley's weight, and
- 4:26Speaker 2: just what I would consider vulnerable. You know, she was
- 4:29Speaker 2: trying to overcome all these things that had happened from
- 4:31Speaker 2: the previous boyfriend. And we didn't realize, but she meets
- 4:36Speaker 2: Philip through social media May of twenty nineteen. We met
- 4:42Speaker 2: Philip in our home. When we met him, he just
- 4:45Speaker 2: did not seem the type of person that Zephy and
- 4:48Speaker 2: I would normally be associated with. Very quiet, very strange.
- 4:53Speaker 2: She didn't introduce him as her boyfriend, just as a friend,
- 4:57Speaker 2: and asked how they knew each other. He said through
- 5:00Speaker 2: and also said that he was seventeen at the time.
- 5:03Speaker 2: My daughter was sixteen.
- 5:06Speaker 1: So and of course we're talking about nineteen year old
- 5:09Speaker 1: Philip Baldenegro who had already, I guess, identified her as
- 5:14Speaker 1: a potential target and was already sort of using the
- 5:19Speaker 1: various mind games and other coercive tactics to sort of
- 5:25Speaker 1: draw her into his web. You know, the way this
- 5:29Speaker 1: thing unraveled, it reminds me as much as anything of
- 5:33Speaker 1: the movie Cape Fear with Robert de Niro, because this
- 5:37Speaker 1: Baldenegro character, you know, began keeping Zephie out all hours
- 5:41Speaker 1: of the night. The Travinos, to their credit, Henry and Crystal,
- 5:45Speaker 1: it's stalled the tracking app on her phone because they
- 5:49Speaker 1: obviously knew that things were not right with this new
- 5:52Speaker 1: person in her life. Little could they have known just
- 5:55Speaker 1: how bad it was. But then one night she didn't
- 5:59Speaker 1: come home at all, the tracking app was deleted and
- 6:02Speaker 1: her phone had been turned off.
- 6:04Speaker 2: You know, we had the Life three sixty app for
- 6:07Speaker 2: kids on there that turns off social media tracks. But
- 6:11Speaker 2: when it's deleted, you know, your hands are tied. They
- 6:15Speaker 2: communicated through text and I always thought that it was
- 6:18Speaker 2: my daughter texting. I can't even say that for sure
- 6:21Speaker 2: now that it wasn't film texting saying that the movie
- 6:25Speaker 2: was over and that they would be home after eating
- 6:28Speaker 2: a small bite, and then she's gone.
- 6:31Speaker 1: It was investigated as a missing person's case. She came
- 6:35Speaker 1: home two days later, hadn't eaten anything, and she was
- 6:38Speaker 1: wearing clothes that had not been provided to her by
- 6:41Speaker 1: the family, So all the alarm bells are going off.
- 6:44Speaker 2: You know, my gut was she was on drugs, and
- 6:47Speaker 2: to see your child decline the way that she did,
- 6:51Speaker 2: it was very hard to understand what was going on
- 6:53Speaker 2: because it was happening so fast.
- 6:56Speaker 1: What did you do at that point? And what could
- 6:58Speaker 1: you advise other parents to do in that situation?
- 7:01Speaker 2: You know you're trusting And I'll say this, Jason, that
- 7:04Speaker 2: you know I've worked in a school district, so I
- 7:06Speaker 2: always saw kids differently, I guess in my eyes. So
- 7:09Speaker 2: I never wanted to just point blank be like this
- 7:12Speaker 2: kid is no good. But I look back on it
- 7:15Speaker 2: now and I think I felt it. I knew it,
- 7:18Speaker 2: and so as a parent, if your gut is telling
- 7:21Speaker 2: you This is not a good thing. This is not
- 7:23Speaker 2: a good idea. They shouldn't have gone out to the movies.
- 7:26Speaker 2: Go with your gut feeling. I'm not sure what could
- 7:30Speaker 2: have been done other than you know, for parents, I
- 7:32Speaker 2: would suggest be on that social media on their phones.
- 7:36Speaker 2: Do whatever you can. And I hate to say this,
- 7:39Speaker 2: but they don't have privacy. Do whatever you have to
- 7:42Speaker 2: do to protect your kid. The predator that entered my
- 7:57Speaker 2: daughter's life looked like the normal teenage person and was
- 8:03Speaker 2: able to manipulate, threaten, change her, change everything that was
- 8:08Speaker 2: happening in our life and in her life at the time.
- 8:11Speaker 2: What I understood sex trafficking to be looked totally different
- 8:14Speaker 2: than what has happened in our family. I always pictured
- 8:18Speaker 2: the movie Taken, where your kid is kidnapped and taken
- 8:22Speaker 2: across you know, countries, and it's happening right here, right
- 8:27Speaker 2: here in America, right here in Texas, and it can
- 8:30Speaker 2: happen to any young girl that's vulnerable or is trusting
- 8:35Speaker 2: a young boy.
- 8:36Speaker 1: And we know now that this was a very violent guy.
- 8:40Speaker 1: And this is I think a tactic that is not uncommon,
- 8:43Speaker 1: which is that the trafficker will once they identify and
- 8:45Speaker 1: they coerce their victim into this web. They will then
- 8:50Speaker 1: use threats of violence or actual violence against them, but
- 8:53Speaker 1: also against their families. So they put the child in
- 8:56Speaker 1: an impossible situation where they're saying, look, if you try
- 8:59Speaker 1: to run away or you try to tell the authorities
- 9:01Speaker 1: about us or whatever, we're going to harm your family.
- 9:04Speaker 1: We might kill your family. And when you're sitting there
- 9:07Speaker 1: in that situation and you recognize that this is a
- 9:10Speaker 1: person who is capable of extreme violence, in fact you're
- 9:12Speaker 1: on the receiving end of it, there's every reason that
- 9:15Speaker 1: you should take those threats seriously. And that's exactly what
- 9:20Speaker 1: Zeffi was experiencing. And then things got really insane. On
- 9:26Speaker 1: August third, twenty nineteen, at around four point thirty pm,
- 9:30Speaker 1: twenty four year old Carlos Morio and another man went
- 9:33Speaker 1: to an apartment on the three hundred block of Northeast
- 9:36Speaker 1: fifth Street in Grand Prairie, Texas. They were lured there
- 9:40Speaker 1: by the promise of sex with Zephi Baldenegro and an
- 9:43Speaker 1: accomplished Jesse Martinez surprised and robbed the men. A fight
- 9:48Speaker 1: broke out, resulting in Baldeegro shooting and killing Morio and
- 9:53Speaker 1: I do want to turn to you, Justin's if you
- 9:55Speaker 1: can explain how this turned into it turned into with
- 10:01Speaker 1: Zeffi being charged with capital murder for a shooting that
- 10:05Speaker 1: no one claims that she committed.
- 10:06Speaker 3: No one. When the Travinos reached out to me and
- 10:09Speaker 3: they explained the details of this case, it was something
- 10:12Speaker 3: that really grabbed me immediately. And I can't speak to
- 10:16Speaker 3: specifics because I'm bound to confidentiality laws regarding minors. But
- 10:20Speaker 3: what I can't talk about are the facts that are
- 10:22Speaker 3: incontrovertible at the moment. What we do know is that
- 10:25Speaker 3: Baldenaegro has admitted to being the shooter. And we do
- 10:28Speaker 3: know that the two men that one of which was murdered,
- 10:31Speaker 3: but the other one that was assaulted by Baldenegro and
- 10:34Speaker 3: his accomplice, they were there to purchase sex from a
- 10:38Speaker 3: minor child. You know, these facts are incontrovertible. Everybody knows
- 10:41Speaker 3: that these are the facts.
- 10:42Speaker 1: There's not one person on any side of this that
- 10:45Speaker 1: claims that she shot a gun held a gun. I mean,
- 10:48Speaker 1: here's a young girl in a place that she's not
- 10:51Speaker 1: in of her own free will, and then a dispute
- 10:54Speaker 1: breaks out in the middle of a robbery that results
- 10:57Speaker 1: in a murder. So what was she supposed to do?
- 11:00Speaker 1: Put on some sort of superhero cape and try to
- 11:02Speaker 1: stop them. I mean, she was there because she was
- 11:05Speaker 1: in the process of being kidnapped, and she was being
- 11:09Speaker 1: held there so that somebody could make money by selling
- 11:12Speaker 1: her body. And I hate saying it, I hate hearing
- 11:14Speaker 1: myself say it, but that's what it was. So then
- 11:18Speaker 1: this murder takes place, and Zeppi, a victim, a child
- 11:21Speaker 1: sex trafficking victim, is now being charged as a perpetrator.
- 11:26Speaker 3: What has been wildly reported was that Zeffi was in
- 11:28Speaker 3: pre trial custody in the Dallas County Juvenile Facility for
- 11:32Speaker 3: a year awaiting trial, and obviously that's spilled into the
- 11:34Speaker 3: COVID nineteen pandemic. I definitely want to commend you, Jason.
- 11:38Speaker 3: A lot of the attention that you brought this case
- 11:40Speaker 3: allowed for Zephi to be released pre trial, along with
- 11:44Speaker 3: the legal work too. But I actually got worried about
- 11:47Speaker 3: this from Crystal and Henry Zeffie's parents. The Dallas District
- 11:50Speaker 3: Attorney's office is actually trying to certify her as an adult.
- 11:54Speaker 3: So if she gets certified as an adult, She's going
- 11:57Speaker 3: to be facing life in prison if she takes this
- 11:59Speaker 3: to trial and god forbid, loses at trial. She's facing
- 12:04Speaker 3: conviction as an adult for being a victim. It's a
- 12:07Speaker 3: failed social policy in which we allow a young child
- 12:11Speaker 3: who's been victimized severely to be placed in this position,
- 12:14Speaker 3: to be doubly victimized by the criminal justice system.
- 12:18Speaker 2: She was sixteen, she was a child. There were four
- 12:22Speaker 2: grown men in that place. She was the only one
- 12:25Speaker 2: that was a child. She is a victim. She was
- 12:29Speaker 2: being sex trafficked. She did not pull the trigger, she
- 12:32Speaker 2: did not beat them, she did not steal anything. I
- 12:34Speaker 2: really have a hard time understanding why my daughter is
- 12:38Speaker 2: in this situation.
- 12:39Speaker 1: Anytime I read about a state trying to decide whether
- 12:44Speaker 1: to try a child as an adult. Who gets to
- 12:47Speaker 1: decide whether a child is an adult? Is that like
- 12:49Speaker 1: deciding whether up is down? A child is a child.
- 12:52Speaker 1: When you're sixteen, you don't know shit about anything. The
- 12:56Speaker 1: world is still a mystery. So how does this state
- 13:00Speaker 1: of Texas get to even say, on a broad legal principle,
- 13:04Speaker 1: justin that this child is an adult, we've decided if
- 13:09Speaker 1: she's an adult.
- 13:10Speaker 3: As a general principle, as a broad legal principle states,
- 13:13Speaker 3: especially the state of Texas, that can try a child
- 13:16Speaker 3: as an adult when it comes to the severity of
- 13:18Speaker 3: the crime, or if the child, through a diagnostic exam,
- 13:21Speaker 3: has shown themselves to a mental type of nature that
- 13:24Speaker 3: implies some level of criminality that goes up and beyond
- 13:28Speaker 3: what a child should exhibit. I mean, I think it's
- 13:30Speaker 3: very abstract stuff. At the end of the day, children
- 13:33Speaker 3: are children. If you're under the age of eighteen, you
- 13:35Speaker 3: can't contract to do anything with your life. You need
- 13:37Speaker 3: a parent's consent. But yet when it comes to the
- 13:39Speaker 3: criminal justice system, they completely ignore this element when it
- 13:43Speaker 3: comes to the mental state or the men's rea of
- 13:46Speaker 3: a young child. So as a broad principle, I mean,
- 13:49Speaker 3: it's well settled that children can be tried as adults
- 13:53Speaker 3: in certain contexts, But practically speaking, I think this policy
- 13:58Speaker 3: should be eradicated from society. I mean, you know, also
- 14:01Speaker 3: you have to look at the legacy of racism when
- 14:03Speaker 3: it comes to trying children as adults. I mean it
- 14:05Speaker 3: comes from this notion of typically back in Jim Crow era,
- 14:09Speaker 3: in which a criminal justice system endeavored to try young
- 14:12Speaker 3: black men as adults to answer for crimes in a
- 14:14Speaker 3: very serious way that provided retribution or some type of bloodlust.
- 14:19Speaker 1: One of the cases that haunts me is the case
- 14:21Speaker 1: of George Stinney Junior. Right, George Stinney Junior. Of course,
- 14:24Speaker 1: he was found innocent years and years later. In nineteen
- 14:28Speaker 1: forty four, was a fourteen year old boy who was
- 14:31Speaker 1: charged with murdering two little white girls. His trial took
- 14:36Speaker 1: two hours, the jury deliberated for ten minutes that he
- 14:38Speaker 1: was executed. He had to sit on a fucking telephone
- 14:41Speaker 1: book because he was so small in order for them
- 14:43Speaker 1: to even electrocute him. And of course he has been exonerated,
- 14:47Speaker 1: but a lot of good that does. So that goes
- 14:49Speaker 1: right back to your point. That's the grotesque history of
- 14:53Speaker 1: treating children like adults in our criminal legal system. There's
- 14:58Speaker 1: no other place in society where a sixteen year old
- 15:01Speaker 1: is considered an adult.
- 15:02Speaker 3: The fact that we have a young child who was
- 15:04Speaker 3: a victim of sex trafficking now possibly being exposed to
- 15:09Speaker 3: life in prison, I just don't understand why that's the
- 15:12Speaker 3: policy here. I don't understand why Dallas County is pursuing this.
- 15:16Speaker 2: You know, we had public defenders at the very beginning
- 15:18Speaker 2: of this case, and they told us she's not being
- 15:21Speaker 2: certified as an adult. She is certified as a juvenile.
- 15:24Speaker 2: So fast forward a year. How do you determine someone
- 15:28Speaker 2: was a child then and an adult then? And no
- 15:32Speaker 2: one has been able to answer that for me, if
- 15:35Speaker 2: you're sixteen or sixteen year a child, how do you
- 15:39Speaker 2: say she's an adult? I don't understand that you want.
- 15:42Speaker 3: To certify a child's sex trafficking victim as an adult.
- 15:46Speaker 3: It's almost perverted in a way. It's almost you're saying that, no,
- 15:49Speaker 3: she was actually voluntarily selling herself for sex. And we
- 15:54Speaker 3: know as children you can't enter a contract for anything
- 15:56Speaker 3: at that age. So now, I don't want to sound
- 15:59Speaker 3: like a broken record, but no child can enter into
- 16:02Speaker 3: a contract, especially a sex contract, But certifying them as
- 16:06Speaker 3: an adult kind of counteracts that well settled legal principle.
- 16:23Speaker 1: Where are we now and what can people do about it?
- 16:26Speaker 3: I think people can join in the advocacy that you've
- 16:28Speaker 3: been doing, and other folks, other thought leaders in the space,
- 16:31Speaker 3: have been joining in on getting the word out and
- 16:34Speaker 3: lifting our voices and showing the powers that be here
- 16:37Speaker 3: in Dallas County that this isn't right. Is going to
- 16:39Speaker 3: be a very important element of assisting Zefi and overcoming
- 16:43Speaker 3: these charges.
- 16:44Speaker 1: To donate to the legal defense, go to directly to
- 16:48Speaker 1: dot org. There's also a petition that you can sign
- 16:51Speaker 1: on change dot org, and there's a form letter to
- 16:53Speaker 1: the DA that you can sign on actiondetwork dot org,
- 16:57Speaker 1: and of course follow the hashtag free ze on Instagram.
- 17:01Speaker 1: You can also get updates from me at It's Jason Flum.
- 17:04Speaker 1: That's my Instagram at It's Jason Flumm. Will have all
- 17:08Speaker 1: of these action steps linked in the bio pressure breaks pipes.
- 17:12Speaker 2: And Jason, thank you for everything that you've done. We
- 17:14Speaker 2: really really appreciate this interview. We appreciate the support. You know,
- 17:19Speaker 2: Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Satoya Brown, who herself has gone
- 17:24Speaker 2: through a tremendous story of her own. Everyone that has
- 17:29Speaker 2: supported Zephy since they've heard this story. There are many
- 17:33Speaker 2: other victims that are out there. They need a voice,
- 17:36Speaker 2: they need help. Every voice, every post, Instagram, letter, written
- 17:41Speaker 2: phone call, all of those things help not only Zephaniah,
- 17:45Speaker 2: but the legal system kind of take a closer look
- 17:48Speaker 2: at what's happening, especially here in Texas, and to help
- 17:52Speaker 2: the DA recognize the truth of this case.
- 17:56Speaker 1: It's almost like we're so ashamed as a country that
- 18:00Speaker 1: this actually goes on that we don't even talk about it.
- 18:04Speaker 1: And I'm glad you mentioned Sintoya Lisa Montgomery. Of course,
- 18:07Speaker 1: there's a wonderful story the flip side of a woman
- 18:10Speaker 1: named Tara Simmons, a dear friend of mine who was
- 18:12Speaker 1: sex trafficked as a young teenage girl, was in prison
- 18:16Speaker 1: and now has ended up graduating at the top of
- 18:19Speaker 1: her class from the University of Washington law school and
- 18:21Speaker 1: is now an elected representative in the state of Washington.
- 18:24Speaker 1: And I'm so freaking proud of her, and I hope
- 18:27Speaker 1: that the future is going to look as bright for
- 18:29Speaker 1: Zeffie and that she's going to get through this. Hopefully
- 18:32Speaker 1: the distric attorney will drop the charges and basically acknowledge
- 18:36Speaker 1: that this was a mistake. So now we turn to
- 18:40Speaker 1: the closing of our show, which is I think the
- 18:43Speaker 1: best part every week. It's my favorite part. It's a
- 18:46Speaker 1: part we call closing arguments. First of all, I thank
- 18:50Speaker 1: each of you. Justin Moore, defense attorney and social justice advocate,
- 18:55Speaker 1: thank you for being here. And Crystal Trevino, thank you
- 18:59Speaker 1: for showing up us all what courage looks like. And
- 19:02Speaker 1: now I get to turn my microphone off and we
- 19:05Speaker 1: my headphones on and just listen as each of you
- 19:08Speaker 1: can share your thoughts on anything you want to share
- 19:12Speaker 1: your thoughts on, and justin let's have you go first,
- 19:15Speaker 1: if that's okay, and save Crystal for.
- 19:18Speaker 3: A last thank you, Jason. I mean, in conclusion, I
- 19:21Speaker 3: think this case is the canary in the cave. Sex
- 19:26Speaker 3: trafficking is pervasive throughout our society, and sex trafficking including minors,
- 19:32Speaker 3: is equally pervasive. If you want to put it into this,
- 19:36Speaker 3: we have to start with the criminal justice system and
- 19:38Speaker 3: how it treats victims that are placed in these precarious positions.
- 19:44Speaker 3: The criminal justice system endeavors not to acknowledge that victimhood.
- 19:47Speaker 3: We're going to further stigmatize these folks who are involved
- 19:50Speaker 3: and ensnared in these trauma bonds with these traffickers, and
- 19:54Speaker 3: we're not going to empower them to step up and
- 19:56Speaker 3: speak out about the abuse that they are a part of.
- 20:01Speaker 3: So we need people to advocate for a criminal justice
- 20:04Speaker 3: system that has compassion but also nuanced when it looks
- 20:08Speaker 3: at sex trafficking victims. And so we have that this
- 20:11Speaker 3: is going to continue to be an issue, and we
- 20:14Speaker 3: need to start protecting folks who can't protect themselves.
- 20:17Speaker 2: Christal Well, again, thank you for giving us this opportunity
- 20:21Speaker 2: to speak Dallas County. The legal system in general has
- 20:25Speaker 2: not even acknowledged that my child was a victim, and
- 20:29Speaker 2: she continues to be victimized. Sex trafficking doesn't look like
- 20:35Speaker 2: what we all have in our head or what we've
- 20:37Speaker 2: been told or what's been on the news. Yes, those
- 20:40Speaker 2: are very real situations, but sex trafficking can be the
- 20:46Speaker 2: young adult next door, most victims in any situation of abuse,
- 20:51Speaker 2: or people that you know and people that you have
- 20:54Speaker 2: come to trust. I ask that there'd be some resources
- 20:58Speaker 2: for parents when this is all and done, to help
- 21:02Speaker 2: recognize signs, because it is heartbreaking and it is very
- 21:08Speaker 2: much a part of our life from here on outh.
- 21:11Speaker 2: I've said this before that this is the battle before
- 21:14Speaker 2: us right now to get her free. But we'll continue
- 21:18Speaker 2: to battle and we'll continue to heal from every aspect
- 21:22Speaker 2: of this, from the law, from her being in juvenile,
- 21:26Speaker 2: from her being victimized, for her being sex trafficked and
- 21:29Speaker 2: sexually abused. Thank you for saying we're courageous, but I'll
- 21:34Speaker 2: be honest, it is truly by our faith in God
- 21:37Speaker 2: that has held us and has kept us. My prayer
- 21:41Speaker 2: would be that the legal system recognized my daughter as
- 21:47Speaker 2: a sex traffic victim and they change the law because she's.
- 21:51Speaker 4: Not the only one I know that. I know there
- 21:55Speaker 4: are other young women and probably men that have gone
- 21:59Speaker 4: through this. And when a sex traffic victim or a
- 22:02Speaker 4: victim in general speaks out and you do nothing, you're
- 22:09Speaker 4: literally saying they don't matter. Everyone, please keep us in prayer.
- 22:16Speaker 2: Pray for the DA to open his eyes and recognize
- 22:20Speaker 2: and do something about it and drop this case.
- 22:29Speaker 1: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
- 22:32Speaker 1: get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud
- 22:36Speaker 1: donor to the Ennocence Project and I really hope you'll
- 22:38Speaker 1: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
- 22:42Speaker 1: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
- 22:46Speaker 1: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
- 22:49Speaker 1: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
- 22:52Speaker 1: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
- 22:54Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
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- 23:02Speaker 1: Podcast Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm is a production of
- 23:05Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number
- 23:09Speaker 1: one