| On March 22, 2016, 35-year-old Desheen Evans was arrested on charges of promoting prostitution, luring a child into a building to commit a crime, and child endangerment. Evans was accused of taking two girls under the age of 13 to a hotel in Bronx, New York on February 5, 2016, so they could have sex with paying customers.
Police also arrested 27-year-old Miguel Benitez on charges of trafficking the two girls.
According to police, Evans took the girls to the Sheridan Hotel in the Bronx and obtained two rooms so that Benitez could arrange for men to pay to have sex with the two girls.
On April 26, 2017, Evans pled guilty in Bronx County Supreme Court to two counts of conspiracy for conspiring with Benitez to attempt to promote prostitution. At her sentencing hearing, Evans said, “I want to take this time to apologize to the victims for having hurt them in any way. I, too, was a victim of this.”
Evans then was sentenced to two years and eight months to eight years in prison.
Benitez pled guilty in October 2017 to attempted sex trafficking. According to prosecutors, Benitez had placed an advertisement offering the two girls for sex in Backpage, an online advertising website which allowed users to post advertisements, including those for sexual services. (In 2018, Backpage was closed down by the U.S. Department of Justice, which alleged the website facilitated prostitution.) Benitez was sentenced to eight years in prison.
On June 11, 2018, Evans was released on parole.
In December 2020, Evans filed a motion to vacate her convictions. The motion said that Evans had been a victim of a different trafficker who had ordered her to work with Benitez.
The motion said that in July 2020, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services had concluded that Evans met the criteria for confirmation that she had been a victim of human trafficking.
According to the motion, Evans was working for the U.S. Postal Service in 2014 and was living with her boyfriend, William Kovaluskie. One night, she went with fellow workers to a bar and met a man identified in the motion only as B. They began seeing each other regularly and a romantic relationship developed. That changed when B. began slipping MDMA, also known as Molly, into her drinks. “He soon began giving her MDMA on a regular basis and Ms. Evans became addicted,” the motion said. “She also started drinking heavily around this time.”
Not long after, Evans was injured in a car accident. Unable to work, she lived on unemployment insurance. Meanwhile, Evans and B. were living in hotels because Kovaluskie still lived in the apartment where Evans had formerly lived.
B. became controlling, the motion said. Evans was not allowed to see her family outside of B.’s presence. If she did, B. would beat her. She was only allowed to go to her former apartment to retrieve clothing or other personal items, and only when B. was there.
“She was addicted to drugs and alcohol supplied by B., and he confiscated all of her money and had complete control of her finances, leaving her fully dependent on him for survival,” the motion said.
In late 2015, B. attempted to persuade Evans to allow him to post her photograph and phone number on the Backpage section where sex workers advertised. When she refused, he beat her “in the ribs, in the face, and all over her body,” the motion said. “In late December 2015, afraid for her life and worn down by physical and psychological abuse, Ms. Evans allowed B. to place advertisements on Backpage.”
Customers who answered the ads met Evans in one of numerous hotels where she and B. had rented rooms. “B. usually hid in the bathroom or a closet as Ms. Evans had sex with the customers. Some customers made unusual requests, but when Ms. Evans said no, B. would beat her and force her to do whatever the customer wanted,” the motion said.
Afterward, B. confiscated money paid by customers. Evans “was never in possession of cash…And he threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave him. Kovaluskie, as well as a cousin of Evans and a friend, were concerned about her change in behavior. When they asked Evans, she would acknowledge that her life was ruined, but she refused to provide details. “They all knew that something bad was happening to Ms. Evans, but they did not know how to help,” the motion said.
In early 2016, Kovaluskie searched Evans’s phone number online and found the Backpage advertisements. Alarmed, he informed Evans’s family, who then tried to talk to Evans. “Ms. Evans, ashamed and terrified, vehemently denied she was a prostitute and hung up the phone,” the motion said.
On the night of February 4, 2016, B. and Evans were at a Ramada hotel in the Bronx when they met Benitez who had the two underage girls with him. B. and Benitez agreed to “partner together,” the motion said. On the morning of February 5, B. and Evans were planning to move to the Sheridan Hotel to see more customers. As they were leaving, Benitez asked if he and the two girls could accompany them.
Evans “begged B. to say no, but he told her to shut up and threatened to beat her,” the motion said
At the Sheridan Hotel, B. ordered Evans to rent a room. She paid for a single room. Benitez then asked her to use her identification to rent a room for him and the two girls. She refused. Benitez then began speaking to the desk clerk in Spanish and passed the clerk a $50 bill. The clerk handed over a key without asking for identification.
The motion said that no one responded to B.’s advertisements that day, so he and Evans left. She did not see Benitez or the girls again. After she was arrested, B. dropped out of Evans’s life.
The motion said that after her release on parole, Evans worked at the Project Renewal Fort Washington homeless shelter in Manhattan. She did laundry, cleaned rooms, and helped residents if she could. She worked through the Covid-19 pandemic and underwent therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. She began attending Berkeley College online.
The prosecution did not oppose the motion. On January 12, 2021, the convictions were vacated, and the charges were dismissed.
In May 2022, Evans filed a claim in the New York Court of Claims seeking compensation for her wrongful conviction. In August 2023, the claim was dismissed.
– Maurice Possley
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