Page 11 - 2024 OAD First Monday in October Journal

2024 OAD BEACON OF HOPE AWARD

DESHEEN EVANS

Desheen Evans was born in New York City in 1980. Her childhood
was extraordinarily difficult. Her mother spent many years in prison,
so her earliest years were spent with her father’s family, where
she was severely physically abused and constantly surrounded by
drug dealing and addiction. At the age of 13, she was placed in
foster care. Ms. Evans spent the next eight years in a series of foster
homes, where she suffered significant abuse. She aged out of the
foster system at 21 years old. These experiences left Ms. Evans traumatized but resilient. She had her own
apartment by the age of 18 and was entirely self-sufficient. She was a strong, independent person.

In 2014, Ms. Evans was working at the Post Office as a mail processor. Near her workplace, she met the
man who would become her trafficker. Using violence, drugs, and isolation, this man forced her to perform
sex work. In 2016, Ms. Evans was arrested and charged with conspiring with her trafficker and another man
to traffic two minor girls in a hotel in the Bronx. Her insistence that she too was a victim went unheard by
law enforcement. Ultimately, she entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment. It
was her first and only criminal conviction.

OAD was assigned to represent Ms. Evans in October of 2018. Her assigned Staff Attorney, Stephen
Strother, immediately began investigating her history and discovered that not only was Ms. Evans a victim
of trafficking, but she was also innocent of the charges against her. Mr. Strother brought Ms. Evans’s
case to the attention of the Bronx District Attorney’s office. Over the course of two meetings, Ms. Evans
relived her trauma in front of two prosecutors, telling her story in excruciating detail. As a result of her
bravery and strength, the Bronx D.A.’s office consented to vacatur of her conviction because she was
a victim of sex trafficking. Her conviction was vacated and sealed on January 19, 2021. Since that time,
Ms. Evans has gone on to extraordinary achievements. For several years, she worked in a New York City
homeless shelter as a client aide, helping unhoused men in desperate need. She then spent time as a child
protective specialist at the Administration for Children’s Services before moving to her current position as
an Eligibility Specialist at the City’s Human Resources Administration.

Ms. Evans received her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice in 2021 from Berkeley College, and she
completed her master’s degree in psychology from Grand Canyon University in 2024. She will receive
her diploma at a graduation ceremony in late October of this year. She hopes to spend her life providing
people with the help she did not receive when she was young. Ms. Evans is a fierce and tenacious advocate
for other people in need. She remains one of the strongest, most resilient people our office has ever known.

9