And basically, Chrystul is at the center of this case that says everything about the sexual trauma that so many young Black girls go through when they are trafficked, and what can happen. She is not the first sex trafficking victim to be criminalized for what she says is self-defense, but her case took place in Kenosha. And so, it really says a lot about the police force there, the prosecutors there. And she's now out, but she is still charged with life in prison or, excuse me, she is still charged with first-degree intentional homicide and could face life in prison.
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: And, Jessica Contrera, when you talk about what this says a lot about the criminal justice system in Kenosha, we recall that after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, it was discovered that there had been systematic abuse by the police in the Black community almost as in terms of tickets and warrants, to basically raise revenue for the town, that were directed against the Black community. What have you found in your reporting of how Kenosha police have dealt with situations or crimes within the -- that affect the Black community?
JESSICA CONTRERA: Yes, I can speak to what happened to Chrystul specifically. We know that when Chrystul at the time that Chrystul was being sexually abused by Randy Volar, he was under investigation from the Kenosha Police Department. The Kenosha Police Department actually arrested him in February. And during the course of that arrest, they raided his home and found video evidence that -- they found video evidence that Mr. Volar was sexually abusing multiple underage Black girls. They didn't know how old these girls were. In their documents, they said that they believed that some of the girls appeared to be as young as 12. They also found video evidence that he had hundreds, they said, of videos of child pornography.
But on that very same day, they released Randy Volar. And three months passed before they turned that evidence over to the district attorney. And even once the district attorney had that evidence, 12 days passed before Mr. Volar was killed, and they no longer could prosecute the case.
AMY GOODMAN: Jessica Contrera
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: And what was the --
AMY GOODMAN: Oh, go ahead, Juan.
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: What was the reason for the three-month delay in turning over the evidence to the district attorney?
JESSICA CONTRERA: So, the Kenosha Police Department would not comment for my story. They still have not provided a reason for that. The Kenosha district attorney says that they had assigned a sex crimes prosecutor to the case and were under continued investigation, trying to figure out things like how old the girls were and what charges were available. But we spoke, in the course of our reporting, to other district attorneys, other prosecutors who have experience with sex crimes, who say that this case, with so much video evidence, was something that should have been handled in a much different way.
AMY GOODMAN: You were with Chrystul's mother when she opened the boxes of evidence that had been gotten under discovery? Is that right, Jessica? Can you describe what she saw? I mean, we're talking about hundreds of pictures and videotapes that the police had when they released him.
JESSICA CONTRERA: Yes. So, in the course of our reporting, I of course tried to get access to the investigative file on Mr. Volar, and the police continued to deny that request. But Chrystul had access to that information and while she was in jail. And because she moved between jail and a prison at the time, the box that the evidence was in was actually mailed to her mother.
And so, I was with her mother when she was seeing for the first time a partial report of the investigation into Mr. Volar. And there were a number of pictures that were screenshots from these videos, including a screenshot of her daughter, that she could see that police had evidence that her daughter was with this man, and that they had this evidence that he was abusing not only her, but multiple girls. It was just devastating to watch. I can't describe. You know, her mother was, of course, crying and screaming. And her mom was grappling with the fact that if this man had been arrested and if he had been held, her daughter wouldn't have done what she did, and her daughter wouldn't be facing life in prison.
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: And could you talk about the affirmative defense for child sex trafficking victims that Chrystul Kizer's legal team is attempting to use in this case?
JESSICA CONTRERA: Yes. Thank you so much for asking. That's a really important part of this case.
So, in many states, there are versions of what's called the affirmative defense for sex trafficking victims. So, in this case, Chrystul was clearly a sex trafficking victim because she was underage at the time. And so, what the affirmative defense allows someone to do is point to a crime that they committed and say that they committed that crime because they were a sex trafficking victim at the time. Now, this is something that is used frequently across the country for charges related to prostitution or solicitation. It is also sometimes used for things that young women, in most cases, can be forced into, such as robbery or carrying drugs. It has not, anywhere across the country, been used in a case of a homicide. And Chrystul Kizer's defense team says that in this particular circumstance she should be allowed to use the affirmative defense to explain what happened.
AMY GOODMAN: And Graveley? Can you talk about the DA? Because that goes to this case today, which we're not asking you to comment on, and Jacob Blake, but he is the DA involved in both cases.
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