Chrystul Kizer agrees a plea deal to avoid life term for shooting dead Randall Volar, whom she said was her sex-trafficker.

A Milwaukee woman has been jailed for 11 years for killing the man that prosecutors said had sex trafficked her as a teenager.

The sentence, issued on Monday, ends a six-year legal battle for Chrystul Kizer, now 24, who had argued she should be immune from prosecution.

Kizer was charged with reckless homicide for shooting Randall Volar, 34, in 2018 when she was 17. She accepted a plea deal earlier this year to avoid a life sentence.

Volar had been filming his sexual abuse of Kizer for more than a year before he was killed.

Kizer said she met Volar when she was 16, and that the man sexually assaulted her while giving her cash and gifts. She said he also made money by selling her to other men for sex.

          • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
            2·
            3 months ago

            No, I don’t think I would.

            I don’t really know that much about the case and the likelihood of a favourable outcome. Chrystul does, and she decided to take the deal, so I probably would too.

            I’m simply saying that she could’ve mounted a defence at trial if she chose to do so.

          • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
            2·
            3 months ago

            This is from the article:

            Kizer’s case had tested the leniency granted to victims of sex trafficking. Some states have implemented laws - called “affirmative defence” provisions - that protect victims from some charges including prostitution or theft, if those actions were the result of being trafficked.

            Kizer had tested whether an “affirmative defence” for trafficking victims could be used for homicide. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled she could.

            The ruling allowed Kizer to use evidence to demonstrate her abuse at the time of the crime. The case attracted widespread attention and Kizer received support from activists in the #MeToo movement.