15 year-old Alexis Ke’Erica Martin was aware that her ex-boyfriend was about to free her from sex trafficker, Angelo Kerney, but didn’t know that Kerney was about to be killed. Ohio’s brand new safe harbor law should have protected this inspiring survivor.
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Alexis Kierica Martin was raised by her grandmother in Akron, Ohio, and had a strained relationship with her birth mother and father. She had a boyfriend, Deshan Spear, but they broke up around age thirteen, at the same time that an older man named Angelo Kearney began grooming her for the sex trade. By the time she was fourteen, she was actively being trafficked. Time passed and Deshaun reached out to Kierica to ask if the rumors he had heard about prostitution were true. Pet One night, after a party at Angelo Kearney's, Kierica and another woman, jan A Jones, were alone with Angelo and his brother Alicio Samuel. Kierica was aware that robbery was about to take place that would afford her an opportunity to escape. While she was being raped by Alicio, Samuel, Deshaun and his friend Trabaski Jackson broke in, wearing masks and carrying guns. Kearney was shot and killed, and Samuel survived a gunshot to his head. When Samuel came to at the hospital, he mentioned nothing about the child he had been raping, but he did mention the other people he had been with earlier that night. A further investigation led to Alexis Kierica Martin. Ohio's brand new safe Harbor law was written for situations just like this, but neither her lawyer nor the state invoked it before she was tried in adult court for the murder of the man that held her captive in child sex slavery. This is wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flam. That's me. I'm your host, and today if my voice is cracking a little, it's because this story is it's painful to read, it's painful to to talk about. It's an absolute disgrace that any of this happened. It's also a story of triumph over tragedy. Though with us today we have an extraordinary lawyer, Sasha Naming from the Ohio Justice and Policy Center. Sasha, it's wonderful to have you here. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Thank you so much. And we're going to tell the story with the person who lived it, Alexis ki Ka Martin. You'll hear her referred to as Ki Eric as we go through, but she's also known as Alexis Martin. So, Alexis, thank you for being here and sharing your story. Thank you for allowing me the time and opportunity. So let's go back to your childhood acron Ohio, Heartland of America. What was your childhood like before this tragedy? This series of tragedies struck match out. It would be with some people would call unstable. I grew up with multiple family members, but predominantly I was blessed with having my grandmother raised me. All in all, through everything, I would say that she did a pretty good job with at least making sure I knew how to say thank you. Alexis was a child when she was trafficked. She had a tough childhood in some ways, and she said her grandma was a light in that in a big way. But at fourteen years old, she was surviving some horrific things, things that aren't imaginable to many Americans as a prolonged and terrible sex trafficking situation, and she wanted a life that was free and safe and healthy, where she could go to school, where her and her siblings weren't in danger. And she was a child, so she was in a position where she hoped that she could finally have this opportunity to flee from the trafficking, and that brought her into involvement with a robbery of her trafficker. I was fourteen when I met my trafficker, and me and my code of friend and DeShawn Spear. He was my boyfriend and we separated before this case occurred. And then while I was an act of trafficking, we would see each other and check on each other, but I never got too close with him or really like engaged. Um, everybody kept hearing rumors about me being prostituted. Some people were bold enough to ask. Some people, weren't they just you know, kind of turned their nose up to me. Well, he asked me a couple of times, and I continued to deny it and just admitted that I was dancing, but I wouldn't tell him where I was dancing at. So as of that moment, he's left in the dark. And before the night that the Shawn Spirit tried to free ki Erica, which was November seven, Sasha, she had tried to find another way to get out of that life. Right. She was trying to reach out to adults for help. So before the night of this offense happened. She was trying to earned herself in. She actually proactively went to the juvenile system because she had kind of an active case that had been going on in parallel, and she was hoping that they would take her in, that they would arrest her, they would put her in a program. But her trafficker sends her with someone who poses as her caretaker and says she's fine and she's cared for, and even though these adults see the way she's dressed, even though they see these red flags, they let her back out with that person. Alexis, as much as you're comfortable with talking about it. That night when this robbery occurred, can you tell us how this whole thing happened and how somebody ended up dead. I was caught to the house and Jane Jones was also there. They had a party and Angela was training me more so to be his madam. So I had to be there to make sure that the rest of the girls did what they were supposed to and that I made money that night. So during the whole time that the party occurred, I did what Angelo told to do. I dance, I collected money, I served drinks, and then as it got late, everybody left, but that means that there was a lot of eyewitnesses that seen me with him, some of his other brothers, they were there that night. When they left, it was just me, Jane Jones, Angelo Carney, and Alicio Samuel. Alexis was aware that Deshaun and Travasky we're going to be coming into the house. And in Ohio there's something called felony murder, as there is in many other states. And if you're aware of something like a robbery, if you're found legally culpable in something like a robbery and then somebody gets killed, then you're culpable for the homicide that happened. Alexis never shot anybody, never hurt anybody, never wanted anybody to get hurt. But there was this robbery that happened, and when Deshaun Spears and Travasky Jackson break in, when they shoot her trafficker and kill him, when they shoot the man who was raping her, although she is the child and she's the victim there, she became legally culpable ultimately for the death. Once Alicio was shot and Angela was killed, the question was where was I Because I was always with him, and if I wasn't with him, then I was in a position where one of his brothers knew where I was at, So where was I was missing? After Alicia woke up in the hospital, he identified Janet, he never identified me, And my theory on this subject is he didn't identify me because I was a child and he was an adult. But other people that the police questioned that night continuously brought up my name. So I turned myself in and um I was arrested. I was fifteen, and I feel like it was the first time in life that anybody was actually like listening to me. I kind of just told him everything that they wanted to know. My only thing was I just wanted to know was he alive or was he dead? Because I wasn't sure, And when he told me Angelo was dead, I didn't really know how to feel. It didn't click into me that I was truly being arrested for his death until they took me away from the detention center. I was on probation, so I've been arrested a couple of times. I was used to the attention officers and stuff like that, so it was kind of like finally that night I was gonna be safe until they pulled away from there and took me down to the dog Question interrogation, where they left me in the code for about three or four hours. Um. I threw up on the table. They didn't clean that up. I asked for my mother. They told me that my mother left, and I knew some of my rights, and I was like, you know, I thought my mom had to be present because I was only fifteen, and they told me she didn't care. And then I continuously asked for my attorney, and um, I was fifteen. I knew some of my rights right because of Criminal Minds and whatever else I watched, but I didn't really know how to enforce my rights. How they knew I had involvement was? I admitted my own involvement. I didn't know what human trafficking was. I only knew what prostitution and escorting was. I didn't understand that I was a victim. I also admitted to the cops Angela was training me to be his madam. And I also admitted to the cops that I called this man my dad. But that night and for months on, nobody pays attention to that. This episode is brought to you by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated to helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years, Stand Together and its partners have been on the front lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action, supporting nonprodu fits, and working with businesses, Stand Together tackles the root causes of problems in our communities and empowers those closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing unjust prison sentences through the First Step Act, empowering community based programs and help people re enter society, and now working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn how you may get involved, visit stand Together dot org slash conviction. This episode is underwritten by the a i G pro Bono Program. A i G is a leading global insurance company, and for over a decade, the a i G pro Bono Program has provided thousands of hours of free legal services and other support to nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the program added criminal and social justice reform as a key pillar of its mission. Before Alexis Is Case Happen To, IO had passed the Safe Harbor law that was specifically meant to protect survivors of human trafficking like Kerrika. The law would allow juvenile courts to offer services to children like her who were trafficked and to help them. And when she was arrested and sent to juvenile court, that law was in effect, but her attorney didn't know about it and didn't understand it. And Kiko is actually the one who brought this question about this law to the attorney because she had heard about it somewhere, so she was now advocating for herself. And this is above and beyond a fifteen year old who was trying to educate her attorney, who then did look into it but didn't understand the law, and then neither he nor the court nor the prosecutor brings it up. You have this case that that the law is made for the laws in effect, and nobody brings it up, nobody applies it. In fact, the only person who had mentioned it in the process really is Kerrika herself. Just to clarify for audience, that Save Harbor Law Ohio specifically mandates that miners under the age of sixteen do not need to prove that they were compelled to engage in commercial sexual activity. They're automatically considered victims of child sex trafficking, and the statute requires juvenile courts to appoint a guardian to the defendant, a professional other than a parent or attorney who was responsible for advocating in the best interests of the child on trial. So here the defense, lawyer, the court itself, everybody. They just didn't do what they're supposed to do. Nobody did. It's crazy, and then to make matters worse, they send you to adult court. At that point, I was educated on what human trafficking was, so I actually realize that you're a victim and you hold no power, and that somebody you thought you cared about was hurting you. To know that they were knowledgeably hurting you, and that was their only intent ever, was to hurt you, it's pretty defeating. It hurts. So I know all this now. I learned about what the grooming process was, and I identified what my grooming process was. I learned about the trafficking. I learned about the stages with a juvenile counselor named Hilary Finkel, and she's the one who's bringing in this lady named Magan Madamo, who ultimately brings up the safe harbor law to the juvenile court after I'm bound over into the doc court, who ultimately educates my attorney. But while I was in the courtroom, Judge Theodosia, who leads the human trafficking division in some county still to this day, set out of her own mouth, can we take a second and pause? And I want to ask you, Noah, my attorney and the prosecutor, what do we do about this fifteen year olds trafficking? She admits out her mouth that I'm traffic. Not only was I sex traffic, but labor traffic. She admits this. Nobody had a response. The prosecutor and my attorney looked at each other, looked at the judge and was kind of dumbfounded when she asked this question. My attorney, I can't even remember. He mustered up some answer, but it clearly must not have been good enough for Theodosia, because two months later, even after you admit that I'm traffic, I got bound over, and that made me feel like prior to the trafficking, I was raped and I've reported it and I never got help. One of my cousins raped me from nine to ten and they found him not guilty, and it made me feel the exact same way that no matter how many times I tell somebody somebody did something to me that was wrong, I'm always going to either be accused of a liar or it doesn't matter. So I started to lose hope again. It's a miracle that you clung onto any hope at all after everything you had been through. And so February seventeen, two thousand fifteen, a day that we'll live in infamy character, you were advised by your attorney that, with the goal of returning to juvenile court, you should plead guilty to felonious assault and murder. Yes, this was, of course a terrible strategy, and ultimately you were sentenced to twenty one to life. How did you process that sentence and how did you managed to maintain any sort of trace of sanity. Well, I have a little sister that's thuring a half years younger than me, and we were talking when I was six years old, and I promised her that I would never let nobody hurt her and I would always be there to protect her. While I was fighting my case at the Tension Center, I tried to kill myself. I busted all the above vessels in my face, and I was really close it her bad while I was in prison. She's left out in the world with my father and my birth mother. The two people tried to protect her from my whole life. So if I gave up fighting, I gave up fighting for her life. If I gave up fighting, everything that happened to me, every time a man abused me, hit me, tex with me, everything that I've ever done to protect her was ultimately for nothing. If I lay down and just gave up. Now, I was scared to go to trial because my codefendite d Sean just got forty one to life. I would have went if I had somebody believe in me that told me to go. I had two people that told me you should maybe go to trial. One was another fifteen year old girl, and all she said was best friend, if you go, I'm going to support you. And then I had my older sister who was paying for my attorney, and she was telling me she thinks I should take it to trial. I had an indecisive father that kept telling me one minute, plead out and act crazy. The next one, he was telling me to take it to trial. My birth mother. She barely went to any hearings, but she was telling me, plead, because you don't want to get max out at the box. And then I have my attorney who knows more than me that's telling me, plead, we have a good chance of winning your appeal because of the Safe Harbor Law. So I played, but I kept fighting because I have a baby sister that at the end I promised I would protect and if I didn't protect her, nobody else would. So I fought, and I continued to fight after denial after denial, after denial. Her new attorney. He's new attorney, Jennifer Kinsley, ends up taking on this case pro bono and appealing it all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, arguing that Kierka should have received the protections of the Safe Harbor Law, and ultimately the Ohio Supreme Court rejected the case. And they did that while saying that there is ample evidence that Kierka was a victim of human traffic king. But unfortunately, the original trial attorney didn't present evidence linking the crime to Karika being a victim of sex trafficking, So the Supreme Court said, because he didn't create that link, between the known trafficking and the crime. They were not going to apply the safe harbor law to Key, And to me, that's a little bit absurd, because of course there's a connection. You have a fifteen year old child trying to free herself from being trafficked by adults. It doesn't take a lot to think about how there could be a connection there. While justice was delayed, it surely wasn't going to be denied. Ultimately, you petition Governor Dwine for clemency and you had a hearing on that in September of two thousand nineteen. I went in front of the pro Board on determination of my clemency. In November I got an eight to two vote, eight in favor, two against. In January, Governor de Wine considered my clemency and said that he wanted me to do this program Tapestry, and after I completed it, I would come home. I started Tapestry January. Tapestry closed down due to COVID and I was released April. So, after serving seven long years in prison, what was it like walking? How take us inside? That day? That moment April eight, on national television, I was told I was going to be released. It didn't seem real at all, Like this is something that I dreamt about many days in prison, was going home, going home, And now I'm signing a paper to agree to conditions of parole and clemency and being told that I'll be free by monday. So I signed the papers, and then I'm told, you have to go to the whole, to the whole the craziest things ever. Yes, I have to go get COVID nineteen tested and be put in quarantine in the hole until Monday so that I could be released to this program. So I packed up my stuff and for two days, It's like the longest agony in the world. Knowing that in two days you'll be released. In two days, you'll get to enter into a world of something you don't know. I left as a kid, and I left a world of chaos, and I'm supposed to be being released into a world of peace and freedom. Right. I decided that I didn't want to go back to my hometown, Akron, because I didn't want to go back to the same people, the same way, as the same lifestyle. I believe that was, you know, the biggest reason of why I didn't get to reach my goals. As a kid. I believe God gave me a second opportunity with the new family, and I chose to take it. They released me from the President and it's this long corridor you have to walk down, really really really long, and they hand me my release. I d and it's none of this is still real, that I'm really being released until I passed through the other side of the metal detectors and there's Jennifer and Sasha and they hugged me and we walk out the doors and we walk out the doors to cameras in my face. They told me I get to say hi. I say hi, and finally I get to embrace my little sister. Finally I get to embrace this little girl that's not a little girl anymore. I left and she was eleven, and I came home and she's eighteen and has a bigger round belly. It was hard seeing somebody that I thought was my baby not a baby no more. M So are you are you with aunt now? I am. I also have another niece. She was born four months after I went to prison. The reason why I mentioned this is that I was supposed to raise her and four months before she is born into this world I am looking away from her currently right now, we are in the process of getting temporary custody of her, and she is here with me. So I am a aunt. I am an aunt by a lot. I have eleven nephews and nieces together. So I want to talk now about something you began in prison that I hear you're hoping and planning to continue with on the outside, and that's working with other survivors. I heard that when you were in prison, and this sounds, I mean incredible, but hear me out you improved on an existing program by reaching out to someone with the f B I who had actually interviewed you. I got interrogated by the FBI about the human trafficking and stuff, and so I contacted one of the contacts and told her like, Hey, you know, I'm trying to run this group. Do you have any pointers on what I should teach these girls about what is human trafficking? And she actually sent me like these packets and stuff. So me and one of my case managers we went through what I wanted to touch on, and I created a twelve week group on human trafficking and prostitution education. So it talked about healthy relationships talked about sex. It talked about what is grooming, It talked about family loves, It touched on the trafficking part of it, but also some of the healing process of it. And then after you went through the group, you became a mentor to the new ladies. I was going through a group, so it was an ongoing cycle that you had somewhere to go. And every time that group was going on, it would keep me and a lot of other girls out of trouble because you had a place where you were not alone. Somebody could feel every emotion that you felt and wouldn't look at you like you were crazy. I actually have a mentee that I still talked to. She sits on a human trafficking board in Columbus, Ohio, and she wrote me a letter I was in prison and told me that because of me is the reason why she believed that she was a survivor not just a prostitute. One thing with a lot of survivors is we have a problem with men for a while. So somebody that may not have had the issue with men. If I said, oh God, I want to punch him in his face, somebody that hasn't had that issue would be like, there's something wrong with her, but another survivor would be like, girl, I know too, Like yeah, he was talking really mean or something. You know. So the group was just very productive and supportive, and it gave us a family, which ultimately most of us never really had a family or felt we had a family that cared about us. So those are one of the things that I did in prison. Since I've been home, I'm working on going back to college or start my business so I can do a business for at risk teams. That's ultimately what I want to work with. I want to work with kids before they even get involved in the victimization. So, um, that is my dream. Oh my god, he's doing more than most three people I know. It's a really beautiful thing. And if I know, after hearing your story, Kierica, people are gonna want to get involved even more than they already are. So please, Sasha, you want to. So there is a go fund me for Alexis Kierca Martin. Um, she's building up her new future. So she's in a position where she's gonna need some resources to continue her education. She hopes to one day start her own nonprofit to serve survivors, but also just to get up on her feet. And there's the go fund me if you look for Alexis Kierrika Martin support Fund, people can donate and help keep it on her way to the bright future that she deserves. And the other piece, asn't say is Ohio Justice and Policy Center does lots of work to free people who are unfairly sentenced and unfairly incarcerated. And if people want to learn more about keys case or about similar cases, are about our work. Our website is Ohio JPC dot org. So Ohio Justice Policy Center JPC dot org. Where there are two distinct ways people can help Key and then also learn more about the way we need to change our systems and the work that's being done throughout Ohio. And I wanted to say it's not up and running yet, but I would just ask that people stay tuned. I will be releasing my first poetry book. It's all the poems that I did fighting my case and while I was in prison. The person that I'm working with, we are hoping to publish it sometime after my birthday. And one well, we will be happy and proud to help support it and promoted when it comes out. Congratulations on at and we will also be putting the links to the co fund me in our episode guide, so we'll make it easy for our audience to get involved, and we'll post it on our Instagram as well. Now we turned to the segment of the show that I always look forward to, closing arguments, where first of all, I once again thank each of you, Sasha Naman and ki Erica Martin for being here and sharing your amazing saga of a of a life and a case. We wish you all the best of everything. And then I turned my microphone off and I kicked back in my chair and close my eyes so that you can share anything you want to share with our audience. And of course, Karrika, we'd like to save you for last. Sasha, if you can go first, and then whenever you're done, hand the mic off to Kiarka. Alexis Kerricka Martin is incredibly resilient and smart and kind human being, and she has survived a lot and in so many ways is a unique gift in this world, and in some ways her story is one that other people also have, and it's important to keep that in mind because the work toward criminal justice has to be centered on the humanity of people like Key, and right now we have a criminal legal system. It's not always a criminal justice system. Key came out of prison just as we had a pandemic, but also this moment where we're really starting to rethink the way we have justice and racial equity and the way we treat human beings in a system that the cages people. So there's a lot of work to do, and we're incredibly lucky that Governor de Wine granted clemency for Key, because she's going to be a major player, I think, in the way we improve this world. And I'm just incredibly honored to be on her team and to be her friend and to get to see her grow and to be a part of it. Erica is all yours, okay, um. I just wanted to thank you, know, the listeners for staying tune and listening. I wanted to thank you guys for having me on and talking with me. I wanted to clarify just maybe for the listeners, because I was thinking, like they may have been wondering, why do I want to be called Kirka. It is taking ownership of who I am. I feel like Alexis Lexi legs. Um, they all have like a bad past. I feel like holding onto that part of my name is like holding on to a baggage. Um. I don't plan on dropping my name completely, but Kirka is something that my grandmother named me, and that's really the only good of a lot of my past. So UM, I believe I have a new life, a new start or new home, a new dream, so why not a new name. So that is why I like being called kier Kurkey. And my final thoughts and final things that I would say is the main reason why I tell my story. I call it getting naked. Main reason why I get naked in front of audience and I let people see the vulnerability is that anybody can be a victim. Anybody. I was a girl who got all a's in school. I wanted to go to the Air Force. I was in ARLTC. I just didn't have parents at home that loved me. But I had a dream. I wasn't some bad kid that a lot of people thought. Anybody can be a victim, but it takes love in the community to make that victim into a survivor. And that's the difference between me and a lot of other people is that I didn't let my victimization leave me as a victim, and I'm still fighting and I'm going to continue fighting, and so there's no longer a breath in my body to fight for survivors and not just survivors of human trafficking. And I hope that hearing my story encourages people too. If you're not going to at least support the costs, support your family, hug the little girl that's alone, play with the little boy that wants to play, and just let your kids know that their loved, so that there's not men like my trafficker that can come in and use and abuse them. Thank you for listening to Wrong for Conviction with Jason Flopper. Please support your local innocence projects and go to the link in our bio to see how you can help. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Cleburne and Kevin Warns. The music on the show, as always, is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason flam Is a production of Lava for Good podcasts in association with signal Company Number one