Kansas Made This Sex Trafficking Survivor A Criminal — She Desires Another Possibility

Hope Joy Zeferjohn had been lacking through the Kansas Capitol in the day her household ended up being posing for photos using the governor.

It absolutely was might 22, 2015, and then-Gov. Sam Brownback ended up being signing a proclamation for Family Reunification Month.

Zeferjohn’s parents and siblings endured behind him, literal poster kids for Brownback’s efforts to go back kids for their domiciles from foster care.

But Zeferjohn, 16, was at state custody in Salina, currently underneath the control that is violent of guy whom trafficked her for intercourse.

Per year following the picture ended up being taken, Zeferjohn ended up being charged in June 2016 with 10 felonies, including aggravated trafficking that is human. She ended up being 17. Despite federal and state rules that bar prosecuting young ones for prostitution, Zeferjohn is serving a almost six-year phrase in the Topeka Correctional center and certainly will invest an eternity in hawaii intercourse offender registry.

“I deserve another opportunity,” said Zeferjohn, now 21, that is searching for a pardon from Gov. Laura Kelly. “As long I’m able to offer desire to individuals. when I have hope,”

The Kansas Sentencing Commission says trafficking that is human, whether for guys or ladies at all ages, are unusual consequently they are frequently pleaded right down to other reduced crimes.

But advocates for trafficking survivors say misguided charging that is criminal while the ensuing plea deals reached in instances like Zeferjohn’s, are far more typical than state documents indicate.

Along side Zeferjohn, a dozen other young ladies are facing unlawful prosecutions after being positioned in state custody, operating away, and dropping prey to intercourse traffickers as they were minors, stated Karen Countryman-Roswurm, manager of this Center for fighting individual Trafficking at Wichita State University.

“We’ve waged war in the really populace that people stated we had been likely to serve,” she said.

Prosecutors protect their instance against Zeferjohn, saying she victimized other girls.

“How do you handle someone like Hope Zeferjohn?” stated Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay. “If you give a pass to every person who the type of things skip Zeferjohn did? we don’t understand that culture really desires that to occur.”

A tomboy that is freckle-faced

Hope Joy Mae Zeferjohn ended up being the 2nd son or daughter created to Terry and Melody Zeferjohn. It had been Terry’s third wedding, and then he had two other young ones from previous relationships. He’d ultimately have six with Melody.

A Topeka cab driver for two decades, Terry Zeferjohn passed away in September 2018. Obese as well as on impairment, their house ended up being violent and bad, in which he ended up being constantly hunting for earnings, stated Stacey Kelly, one of is own ex-girlfriends together with mom of 1 of their young ones.

Kelly remained near the grouped household and it is Hope Zeferjohn’s godmother. She recalls Terry telling their daughters: “You bleed, you breed,” meaning once they arrived of age they ought to begin having kiddies.

“The only reason they could get more help, any sort of assistance,” Kelly said that they had children was so.

Nevertheless, Hope Zeferjohn continues to be dedicated to her parents.

“It could possibly be good often,” Zeferjohn said of this home. “Sometimes it may be hectic due to most of us young ones. Personally I think like they raised us as most useful they can as well as did quite a good task from it.”

As a kid, Hope Joy lived as much as her title, Kelly stated, explaining her as a sweet, freckle-faced tomboy whom liked to be outside.

Zeferjohn had been simply 14 when her older sister brought Anthony that is 24-year-old“Angel into the house. Longer had an archive, having been charged in 2013 with domestic battery pack, assault and unlawful hazard against an ex-girlfriend.

Terry Zeferjohn welcomed him as friend, Kelly stated, adding that longer usually remained instantly.

In 2014, police arrived at the home in response to a call about a fight between Hope and another one of the children january. Officers discovered neglect and a deep failing to deliver the young children to college.

“When the authorities arrived to the house, it absolutely was saturated in feces, high in trash and clothing every-where. Roaches were out in the daytime since they had been therefore infested,” Kelly stated. “And that they had terrible, horrible, terrible bedbugs.”

The Kansas Department for kids and Families arranged for Kelly to just just take three regarding the girls. Zeferjohn, then 15, had been delivered to an “out-of-home positioning” in Salina, her phrase for a misdemeanor battery pack cost. She had been sentenced in August 2014 to 16 months into the custody associated with the Department of Corrections, into the juvenile offender system.

“It looks nearly the same as foster care,” said Randy Bowman, a DOC spokesman.

Zeferjohn graduated from senior high school and bought her car that is first while state custody. She additionally got expecting and offered delivery to her son, Tye, in March 2015.

The machine ‘failed me’

Then very very Long showed up in Salina. He discovered Zeferjohn during the early 2015 by tricking authorities into providing him her location.

It failed me, that’s how I feel,” Zeferjohn said of the state system“For me. “It permitted Anthony discover my address out, where I happened to be remaining, by pretending like he had been my dad.”

Zeferjohn and longer had a relationship that quickly turned abusive. She uses their two names that are different explain their two edges.

“I loved Angel, okay, as he managed me personally good and everything,” she said. “And then as he became all rude I happened to be like, ‘Where could be the one we love?’ That’s a different sort of Anthony. Many people set up an unusual part for you yourself to fall deeply in love with, however it’s perhaps not the true them.”

He begun to simply just take videos of these sex that is having which he offered, Zeferjohn stated. Every detail was controlled by him in her own life.

“I happened to be such as the prisoner and then he had been just like a warden,” she said. “Coming to jail siberian mail order brides at mail-order-bride.net, it is maybe maybe not no big adjustment to me, which will be pretty bad. No choice was had by me but to obey him.”

Longer brought Zeferjohn back again to Topeka, where, based on court papers, she was forced by him to recruit other girls for their prostitution business, often through Facebook. very Long ran the procedure from the grouped household member’s house, Zeferjohn stated.

Kelly remembers Zeferjohn saying she had been the “house mom,” cleaning, cooking and keeping the other girls lined up.

“(Hope) began prostituting and bringing house cash,” Kelly stated, “and him, it had been likely to be hell to pay for. if she didn’t offer her money to”

The hell included beatings – Zeferjohn said these people were therefore serious that she miscarried twice. Long threatened to hurt her son and anybody near to her she said if she disobeyed.

“He destroyed my entire life,” Zeferjohn stated. “He attempted to destroy me personally twice and I also attempted to think I need certainly to get, i have to get out,’ but I’m stuck in this entire situation. about any of it like ‘”

Fundamentally, Zeferjohn and longer traveled to nyc, where longer had family members. There, she stated, she had been arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart. Whenever police discovered she was returned to the state that she was a runaway from Kansas.

In June 2016, Zeferjohn had been charged as a grownup with 10 felonies: aggravated human trafficking; conspiracy to commit rape; conspiracy to commit aggravated unlawful sodomy; indecent solicitation of a young child; electronic solicitation of a young child; aggravated intimidation and threat that is criminal. She ended up being additionally faced with two misdemeanors: endangering youngster and adding to a child’s misconduct or starvation.

The costs stem from the time Zeferjohn recruited a 14-year-old woman she came across whilst in residing in a foster house, documents reveal. Hope introduced Long to your woman through Twitter, where Long had been utilizing an identity that is false. very Long provided to allow the girl reside if she told police, court records say with them in exchange for sex, and threatened to kill her. The lady reached away to Zeferjohn, who “ordered” her to submit to longer, court papers state.

An additional example, Zeferjohn recruited a girl that is 15-year-old providing her drugs, which very very Long then provided, needing both girls to own intercourse with him as re re payment, documents reveal. longer took pictures associated with girl and told her these were for “johns,” according to documents.

The girl that is 15-year-old this to authorities, stated Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay, and longer ended up being arrested. Later on, Zeferjohn reached away to the lady and connected her back into longer, who had been away from prison. Court papers state longer and Zeferjohn retaliated many times, including once forcing your ex to attend Junction City, where she was sold to a guy and built to remain in a motel space for the week-end where she attained $6,000 for very long.