Tay-K accomplice who said she was trafficked accepts 10 years probation in robbery case
Tarrant County Family Court Judge Bill Harris shifted in his chair. He looked straight ahead and paused, thinking about his words.
“Please don’t be foolish enough to think I actually believe all of this,” he told the 19-year-old woman sitting in front of him.
“I don’t always like the laws, but I have to enforce them.”
Harris had just formally accepted a plea agreement Friday that gave the teenager 10 years probation for her involvement in a deadly 2016 home invasion involving the Arlington rapper known as Tay-K 47.
The woman pleaded “true” and was sentenced to probation on two counts of aggravated robbery.
Her juvenile conviction of capital murder and her original sentence of 20 years in prison was overturned in August by the Texas 2nd Court of Appeals.
The court ruled she was convicted under an improper theory of capital murder and that the trial court erred by saying the girl had a legal duty to prevent the robbery, which she was accused of helping to plan.
The woman’s defense attorney, Scott Brown of Fort Worth, argued in the appeal that the girl didn’t have the legal duty to prevent what happened because she didn’t have a special relationship with the victims — meaning she was not Ethan Walker’s or Zach Beloate’s guardian.
The invasion, which ended in the death of 21-year-old Walker, made national news because of the involvement of Taymor McIntyre, who’s known as Tay-K 47.
The woman was 16 at the time of the crime and her conviction was seen by advocates as an injustice because she said she was a victim of sex trafficking, which Harris said he didn’t believe.
The Star-Telegram is not naming the woman because she was the reported victim of a sex crime.
Ethan Walker
Instead of going through another trial, Tarrant County prosecutors offered the woman probation. That is what they did originally, but the offer was rejected, and in 2018 she was convicted of three delinquent conduct charges: capital murder and two counts of aggravated robbery, all of which were reversed in the appeals decision.
“This is not justice,” said Walker’s mother, Roberta, after the plea deal was accepted. “This is not right and it’s not fair.”
She said Walker’s daughter, who is 3, won’t have the chance to grow up in a loving family with two parents — an opportunity that she says the woman threw away the second she walked into Walker’s home that evening.
She said the plea agreement was not fair to the six other defendants who are spending between 20 years and life in prison for their involvement in the crime.
“It’s not justice for people who are trafficked and don’t go on to intentionally invade someone’s home and leave a dead body,” she said.
Both Roberta Walker and her husband, Richard, spoke to the woman.
Both said she has avoided responsibility.
Both said they are still awaiting an apology.
“This is your doing,” Richard Walker said while holding up a photo of his son and granddaughter. “Take you out of the equation and this would have never happened.”
Richard Walker said he holds her just as responsible as the man who pulled the trigger.
“Police investigated your outcry for a year but couldn’t find evidence,” he said.
He ended by saying that he believes sex trafficking is a horrible crime but that he won’t believe she was a victim unless a pimp is arrested.
The sex trafficking claims
The appeals court mentioned the sex trafficking claims in its decision, but didn’t cite them as a reason for granting the appeal.
Evidence was presented at the girl’s trial to establish that she was a sex trafficking victim and that her participation in the invasion had been the result of duress by her recruiter, Ariana Bharrat, and her pimp. Bharrat was sentenced to 25 years for her part in the home invasion.
Thirteen days before the home invasion occurred, her family reported to police that she was being sexually trafficked.
State prosecutors initially offered the woman a plea agreement before her case went to trial, but she didn’t accept. Her trial attorney has declined to talk to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about why the original plea deal was declined.
Bharrat befriended the girl when she was 12 and introduced her to a pimp when she was 14, according to testimony. Eventually the two of them would take the girl to strip clubs in Fort Worth and Las Vegas. In addition to stripping, the trafficker forced the girl into prostitution when she was 15, according to the appeal document.
As the girl spent more time with the recruiter, she was beaten, choked, burned with cigarettes and tattooed to mark her pimp’s ownership, according to court testimony and an advocate who has been working with her family.
The girl testified that she was unable to escape because the pimp assaulted her and threatened to harm her family.
An expert testified at the girl’s trial that she was a victim. During her transfer hearing, a handful of experts from the Texas Juvenile Justice Department also testified that they believed the girl’s story and all testified that she should have been paroled.
The Star-Telegram in July asked sex trafficking experts and former investigators if a claim of sex trafficking should excuse a crime.
Many of them pointed to “trauma bonding.”
Many children who are trafficked will do anything they can to please their trafficker, such as potentially going along with a crime or helping plan it, said Celia Williamson, executive director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo.
“A child will participate in their own victimization,” she said. “They will lie to make their trafficker happy. … Kids become very loyal to their trafficker and even have positive feelings about their trafficker and when you experience trauma bond, the body has a unique way of surviving.”
Lisa Knapp, a founder of the Austin 20 and advocate on the behalf of the woman said in a statement that she and those at the organization are thrilled that the woman will be released from custody.
“There is sadly a lack of knowledge and understanding about domestic minor sex trafficking within our judicial system and our communities,” she said. “Our children are being manipulated and exploited by the criminals that are trafficking them and further victimized by a system that does not understand this epidemic. No child voluntarily sells themselves for money. There is no such thing as a child prostitute. We as a community need to demand that lawmakers, judges and prosecutors making life changing decisions for our children take responsibility for educating themselves on the complex trauma of domestic minor sex trafficking.”
The woman’s new sentence was 10 years with all 10 suspended for probation. If she breaks the terms of her probation, she could face prison time.
This story was originally published September 27, 2019 at 5:53 PM.