Cyntoia Brown News: Celebrities Issue Support Messages, Offer Legal Aid to Imprisoned Sex Trafficking Victim
Several celebrities sent messages of support and offered legal aid for the sex trafficking victim serving life in prison, Cyntoia Brown.
Brown's story is tainted with an abusive childhood that forced her to run away from home. She ended up in the hands of a pimp named "Cut-Throat" who then sold her to a 43-year-old man in Nashville to be his sex slave. In 2004, at the age of 16, Brown was tried and convicted of murder after shooting the man to defend herself. She has been in prison since then.
According to reports, the now 29-year-old woman is appealing for the reconsideration of her case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
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Brown's story first had public exposure in 2011 through a documentary titled "Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story" and resurfaced recently online, which caught the attention of famous celebrities such as Rihanna and Kim Kardashian.
In Rihanna's post, the singer and makeup mogul asked: "Did we somehow change the definition of #JUSTICE along the way??"
She then added: "Something is horribly wrong when the system enables these rapists and the victim is thrown away for life!"
Meanwhile, Kardashian aired the same sentiment and said on Twitter: "The system has failed. It's heartbreaking to see a young girl sex trafficked then when she has the courage to fight back is jailed for life!"
Supermodel and actress Cara Delevingne also joined the online discussion and said: "The justice system is so backwards!!! This is completely insane #freecyntoiabrown"
Meanwhile, Kardashian said in the same tweet that she had already called her lawyers to ask what could be done to help Brown in the legal aspect. In a report on New York Daily News, topnotch criminal lawyer Shawn Holley revealed that it was her whom Kardashian had asked to help Brown.
Kardashian asked Holley to work on the cases of Brown and Alice Marie Johnson, a 62-year-old woman who is also serving life in prison following a conviction in 1996 for drug-related charges.
In 2016, Johnson wrote an op-ed in CNN to appeal for clemency where she described herself as a "first-time, nonviolent drug offender" but was thrown "to life behind bars in federal prison."
Talking to NY Daily News, Holley said: "Kim asked me several weeks ago how she could help Alice Johnson in her fight for justice. We then began corresponding with Alice and her team of lawyers."
Then, after learning about Brown's story, Holley said: "Kim has championed the cause of Cyntoia Brown and asked me to help her get involved in that effort as well."
