A Milwaukee woman who claimed she was legally justified in killing a man because he was sexually trafficking her was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of reckless homicide, CBS News reports.
A Kenosha County judge sentenced Chrystul Kizer to 11 years of initial confinement followed by 5 years of extended supervision in the 2018 death of Randall Volar, 34. She was given credit for 570 days, about one and a half years, of time served.
The judge didn’t make Kizer eligible to participate in any early release programs at the Department of Corrections and she should be released in 2033, according to the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s office.
Kizer had pleaded guilty in May to second-degree reckless homicide in Volar’s death, allowing her to avoid trial and a possible life sentence.
Prosecutors said Kizer shot Volar at his Kenosha home in 2018, when she was 17, and that she then burned his house down and stole his BMW. Kizer was charged with multiple counts, including first-degree intentional homicide, arson, car theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Kizer, now 24, said she met Volar on a sex trafficking website. He had been molesting her and selling her as a prostitute over the year leading up to his death, she said. She told detectives she shot him after he tried to touch her.
Her attorneys said Kizer couldn’t be held criminally liable for any of it under a 2008 state law that absolves sex trafficking victims of “any offense committed as a direct result” of being trafficked. Most states have passed similar laws over the last 10 years providing sex trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity.
Prosecutors countered that Wisconsin legislators couldn’t possibly have intended for protections to extend to homicide.
Anti-violence organizations rallied behind Kizer, saying that victims of trafficking often feel trapped and sometimes resorting to desperate measures to escape their situation. This sentiment was echoed in a 2022 ruling by the state Supreme Court, which determined that Kizer could raise the defense of human trafficking during her trial.
