SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Irma Reyes’ thoughts raced as her husband drove through the early darkness to a courthouse hundreds of miles from home: Don’t they know my daughter matters?
Reyes had barely been able to eat since she learned that Texas prosecutors planned to let the two men accused of sex trafficking her daughter go free. She went to court to stop them.
Reyes’ daughter was 16 in 2017, when men she only knew as “Rocky” and “Blue” detained her and another girl at a San Antonio motel where men paid to have sex with them. Now the cases against Rakim Sharkey and Elijah Teel – whom police identified as the traffickers – have seen years of delays, a parade of prosecutors, an aborted trial and finally a stark government withdrawal.
They are one of thousands of cases under a cloud of dysfunction at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, whose legal troubles include a federal criminal investigation. Human trafficking cases in particular have come under scrutiny, casting doubt on how the agency, which fights lawsuits that affect people far beyond Texas, is using millions of state tax dollars on an issue that Republican leaders proclaim as a priority while tackling the Attacking Border Security Democrats.
A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Kristen House, declined to answer questions about this story.
“It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Reyes said.
At the courthouse in January, Reyes’ stomach turned as she thought about the deal for the two men: five years of probation. The original charges carried possible sentences of decades in prison.
“You won’t find a more strongly corroborated case,” said Kirsta Leeburg Melton, who oversaw the attorney general’s human trafficking unit until the end of 2019. “And I am sick. It’s wrong.”
In court, Reyes listened as the judge recapitulated the twists and turns of the cases: years lost to the pandemic, delays due to “turnover in the attorney general’s office”, days of testimony last year alone for several people to test COVID-19 to catch and prompt a mistrial.
She listened in disbelief as the new prosecutor told the judge that Reyes’ daughter was “on the run.” The young woman, now 22, left home after an argument, Reyes said, but they continue to keep a steady stream of text messages.
Subsequently, Sharkey and Teel argued for “no contest” against aggravated promotion of prostitution. The judge, Velia Meza, sentenced the men to seven years’ probation, despite prosecutors recommending five, noting that they would not have to register as sex offenders.
Reyes thought of her daughter as she walked to the front of the courtroom to give a statement from the victim.
The AP is withholding the young woman’s name, in line with its policy to avoid identifying victims of sexual assault and other similar crimes. Reyes told the AP she spoke about this story with her daughter, who did not want to comment or be interviewed directly.
Reyes said her daughter was bullied as a girl and would run away from home. In her teens, she started using drugs and in 2017 she was sent to a rehabilitation center.
Court records show that it wasn’t until days after Reyes’ daughter and another girl walked out of rehab that their photos were advertised online for “dates.” They met ‘Blue’ outside a motel, where they could not afford an overnight stay. them to ‘Rocky’. The pair rented the girls a room, helped set up meetings with men who would pay for sex, and collected half the money, according to records.
Reye’s daughter later testified at trial that police found them after she got scared and called her mother because “Rocky” hit her. Asked to identify “Rocky,” the young woman pointed across the courtroom at Sharkey.
Sharkey’s attorney, Jason Goss, claims the jury would have acquitted his client, but told the AP he had no choice but to plead not to challenge the lesser charge because a sentence of up to life was too risky. Teel’s attorney, Brian Powers, did not respond to requests for comment.
After the judge declared a mistrial last June, Reyes, her daughter and the district attorney agreed to retrial the case. But that prosecutor resigned soon after without explanation, amid a spate of seasoned attorneys leaving the attorney general’s office over practices they say were designed to favor legal work, reward loyalists, and dissent. to banish.
In October, Reyes was introduced to new lead attorney James Winters — the last of eight prosecutors to take the case for the firm, court documents show.
Reyes said her daughter told Winters she would testify again. The attorney tried to delay the case, but after the judge refused, he notified Reyes of the plea deal. Winters, who referred questions to an agency spokesperson, resigned after appearing in court over the deal.
In the San Antonio courtroom, Reyes addressed the men who had just submitted their pleas.
“The garbage should be thrown out,” she said. “But they’re lucky today.”
She cried on the way home. Reyes didn’t know how to explain it to her daughter and wished the young woman would come home. She felt isolated and had violent nightmares.
Two days after the hearing, Reyes sat alone in her bedroom and thought about committing suicide. Her thoughts became specific. But then she thought of her children and called a crisis hotline.
“I’m just swimming in my mind,” she said. “I have to be careful not to dive too deep.”
Reyes is still reaching for closure. She has filed legal complaints, although none will reopen the criminal case. Perhaps her best hope is a civil lawsuit that she hopes her daughter will be ready for one day. They’ve been talking more lately.
A few weeks into court, Reyes awoke to a call from a sheriff’s deputy saying her daughter had called 911 with a panic attack; she said she wanted to go home.
I’ve been through this before, Reyes thought. Then she put on some shoes, got into the pickup and drove off into the night.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story contains a discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
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Associated Press photographer Eric Gay and video journalist Lekan Oyekanmi contributed to this report.
