Woman hopes her story would be able to raise awareness about signs of sex slavery
ALERT: Survivor Shares Story Of Being Sold By Family Into Sex Trafficking In Michigan
A survivor who was sold into sex slavery by her family when she was a 12-year-old girl shared her story with Local 4, hoping it would be able to raise awareness about human trafficking warning signs.
Human trafficking or sexual slavery could happen anywhere, in any neighborhood, all the while goes unnotice by most people.
A woman named DeVaugh, 31, said there are signs people could notice to help save others like her.
DeVaugh said a pimp doesn’t necessarily wear a big hat with a feather, and pedophiles aren’t necessarily 40-year-old men who live in basements.
She said sometimes, sex traffickers looks just like family members.
“I was sold at 12, almost 13, by my mother to my sister and my brother-in-law from Kentucky to Michigan,” DeVaugh said.
From the age of 12, DeVaugh grew up in a neighborhood at Wayne Road and Michigan Avenue in Wayne. She said she went to school, had friends, but kept a secret: that she was a sex slave.
DeVaughn lived and grew up in this Wayne neighborhood. (WDIV)
“My brother-in-law was selling me to men who would come to the home,” said DeVaugh. “From our house, I was going to school, I had friends, and I was still being sold from inside my home.”
Now, she’s in the ever-evolving process of healing, speaking to anyone who will listen to her story and take a moment to notice the signs of trafficking.
“If people knew what to look for, it would be so glaringly obvious that something was happening,” DeVaugh told the crowd.
DeVaugh said sex trafficking happens in neighborhoods everywhere.
On Friday, she was the keynote speaker at Human Trafficking Symposium, which is held by Henry Ford Health Systems to train their health care professionals on how to spot human trafficking. She said she doesn’t want the general public to ignore their own neighborhoods.
DeVaughn shared her story at the Human Trafficking Symposium. (WDIV)
“Just by looking — we did look normal, but there were a lot of signs,” DeVaugh said.
Looking back on her life, DeVaugh said her house screamed trafficking, with a lot of visitors — most of them men — coming and going every hour.
When she went out to play, she said an adult was always hovering close by, and she was never allowed to speak freely. In fact, when she was questioned, said adults would always speak for her.
“We had a privacy fence in the backyard,” said DeVaugh. “Big, thick curtains covering every window.”
She would wear long sleeves on the hottest days to hide her bruises, but she still missed a lot of school due to bruises and injuries that couldn’t be covered with clothing, she said.
“If you read the red flags, I exhibited a lot of red flags,” DeVaugh said. “But if you weren’t knowing what to look for, you wouldn’t have saw it.”
Above all, she said neighbors should be nosy.
“If you think something is going on at a store, call the police,” DeVaugh said. “It’s better to be nosy and be wrong than to be quiet and let someone be hurt.”
Doctors are some of the most important people in this fight against human trafficking.
A Sanilac County Circuit judge had granted parenting time and joint legal custody of an 8-year-old boy to a convicted sex offender who allegedly raped the child’s mother nine years ago.
NEWS: Michigan Rapist Gets Joint Custody
Christopher Mirasolo, 27, of Brown City was allowed joint legal custody by Judge Gregory S. Ross after DNA testing established paternity of the child, stated the victim’s attorney, Rebecca Kiessling, who is currently seeking protection under the federal Rape Survivor Child Custody Act. A hearing was scheduled for Oct. 25.
The case, initially reported on “The Steve Gruber Show,” a Lansing-based radio program, was believed the first of its kind in Michigan and possibly the nation. According to the victim and Kiessling, it was prompted after the county surveyed the victim regarding child support she had received this past year.
“This is insane,” said Kiessling, who filed objections Friday with Ross. “Nothing had been right about this since it was originally investigated. He was never properly charged and should still be sitting behind bars somewhere, but the system is victimizing my client, who was a child herself when this all happened.”
Ross disclosed the rape victim’s address to Mirasolo and ordered Mirasolo’s name to be added to the child’s birth certificate — all without the victim’s consent or a hearing, according to Kiessling.
“An assistant prosecutor on this, Eric Scott, told me she had granted her consent, which was a lie — she has never been asked to do this and certainly never signed anything,” Kiessling said.
Ross could not be reached Friday afternoon.
Scott did not return telephone calls Friday, and Sanilac County’s elected prosecutor, James V. Young, was out of the office for the day and unavailable, said a receptionist.
Kiessling said her client was notified she was “not allowed to move 100 miles from where she had been living when the case was filed, without court consent.”
“So the prosecutor told her she had to come home immediately or she would be held in contempt of court,” Kiessling said.
That instruction, along with other matters ordered by the court, shall be taken up at the hearing later this month.
According to Kiessling, Mirasolo forcibly raped and threatened to kill her client, now 21, nine years ago when she was 12. Mirasolo was 18 when the incident occurred in September 2008.
“She, her 13-year-old sister and a friend all slipped out of their house one night to meet a boy and the boy’s older friend, Mirasolo, showed up and asked if they wanted to go for a ride,” said Kiessling. “They thought they were going to McDonald’s or somewhere.
“Instead, he tossed their cellphones away, drove to Detroit where he stole gas from a station and then drove back to Sanilac County, where he kept them captive for two days in a vacant house near a relative, finally releasing the older sister in a park. He threatened to kill them if they told anyone what happened.”
Mirasolo was arrested a month later, she said, when her client got pregnant.
While the assault potentially carried a life-long penalty or any term of years no less than 25 years, Mirasolo was given a plea deal by the Sanilac County Prosecutor’s Office for attempted third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Mirasolo was sentenced to one year in the county jail but only served six and a half months before early release so he could care for his sick mother, Kiessling said.
“She (client) and her family was told first-time sex offenders weren’t sent to prison because people come out worse after they go there,” said Kiessling.
In March 2010, Mirasolo committed a sex assault on a victim between the ages of 13 and 15 years old. He served only four years for that second offense, Kiessling said.
Barbara Yockey, Mirasolo’s attorney, said it’s unclear what her client’s future involvement — if any — will be with the child. She declined to discuss any of his past criminal cases.
“Chris was notified of the paternity matter and an order of filiation was issued last month by the court saying he had joint legal custody and reasonable visitation privileges,” she said. “He never initiated this. It was something routinely done by the prosecutor’s office when a party makes application for state assistance”.
2nd victim: No way rapist should have custody
“I don’t know what his plans or intentions might be regarding any future relationship with the child,” said Yockey. “This might be something we will have a conversation about, but he has not been served with any other court papers and is not scheduled to be in court.”
Meanwhile, the rape victim’s family suggested abortion or giving the child up for adoption. She did neither.
“To her credit, she said she didn’t want the baby to be a victim, too,” said Kiessling. “She dropped out of school, went to live with relatives out of state and worked jobs to try and support herself.”
The Detroit News’ policy is not to identify sexual assault victims.
The woman spoke briefly Friday about her situation.
“I think this is all crazy,” the woman told The News. “They (officials) never explained anything to me. I was receiving about $260 a month in food stamps for me and my son and health insurance for him. I guess they were trying to see how to get some of the money back.”