“You’re not listening,” Cyntoia Brown told the forensic psychiatrist. “I made him money…he wasn’t letting me go nowhere. He told me he’d kill me.”
Cyntoia was trying to give Dr. William Bennett, her case’s forensic psychiatrist, context into her reality as a victim of sex trafficking, why she knew she couldn’t leave her pimp and ended up killing one of her traffickers.
But it seems like no one really truly heard Cyntoia. Her own defense team chalked up her self defense to a personality disorder. The prosecutor’s tried to play off her moments of calm during sexual abuse as compliance. And the judge’s only concern in the matter was at what criminal level she would be prosecuted.
Cyntoia Brown was a 16 year old child from Tennessee. Abused by her adoptive father, she eventually left home and was picked up and sex trafficked up by a pimp named Kut Throat. He repeatedly abused her, choking her till she passed out, raped her while she cried and forced her to have sex with other men while being held at gunpoint. While being trafficked she described waking up to a man sodomizing her, being repeatedly drugged and raped by others and living in constant fear. Eventually Kut Throat had her working the streets as a prostitute.
While working the streets for Kut, a sex trafficker and child predator named Johnny Allen, 43, picked her up and brought her back to his house. When she arrived at Allen’s house, she found it full of guns. Allen then proceeded to grab her privates forcefully, gave her a chilling look and reached over the bed to where his gun was stashed. Afraid for her life, Cyntoia then shot and killed Allen. She grabbed all the money and protection she could and then fled the house. Sixteen-year-old Cyntoia Brown was then picked up and arrested for Allen’s murder.
August 21, 2006 – Cyntoia’s Criminal Trial
Watching the full documentary and how the trial played itself out, I’m appalled. Not one of those adults focused on her sexual abuse, the crimes of her trafficker and her justified defense in the matter. Her own mother focused on how Cyntoia told her she could move on and how she had been embarrassed by her daughter, instead of showing concern for the grotesque abuse her daughter experienced while being victimized as a sex slave.
The prosecutors angled on the notion that she silenced the only witness, (Allen), who could testify against her, and her only angle could be self defense. It’s proven, not a notion, that Cyntoia Brown was sex trafficked, repeatedly raped and killed one her traffickers. The fact that the whole court system regarded this as an after thought in their perspective on Brown is beyond dizzying and sickening.
Comments from her psychiatrist like, “She was physically abused and it sounds like she was sexually abused” are exactly the problem. NO SHE WAS SEXUALLY ABUSED and this is the whole point of the case. When her defense team couldn’t see that, how could she possibly be fairly represented?
That was 11 years ago, and Cyntoia has been serving a life sentence at the Tennessee Corrections for Women ever since.
But yesterday, Tuesday, November 21, 2017, the world started to finally listen. Rihanna caught wind of the atrocties against Brown and posted to Instagram concerning the injustices of Brown’s case. Since then, celebs like T.I., Kim Kardashian and Rick Ross have gotten involved, using their status as a platform to shed light on the issue and help advocate for Brown.
You can help Cyntoia by signing this presidential pardon petition, known as the ‘MoveOn Petition – aimed at helping grant Brown’s freedom.
You can also send your love and support to Cyntoia at the following address:
Ms. Cyntoia Brown
Tennessee Prison for Women
2 North, B49
3881 Stewarts Lane
Nashville, TN 37218-3302
Cyntoia Brown’s Story, the documentary covering her wrongful incarceration can be streamed below:
