A Milwaukee woman has been jailed for 11 years for killing the man that prosecutors said had sex trafficked her as a teenager.
The sentence, issued on Monday, ends a six-year legal battle for Chrystul Kizer, now 24, who had argued she should be immune from prosecution.
Kizer was charged with reckless homicide for shooting Randall Volar, 34, in 2018 when she was 17. She accepted a plea deal earlier this year to avoid a life sentence.
Volar had been filming his sexual abuse of Kizer for more than a year before he was killed.
Kizer said she met Volar when she was 16, and that the man sexually assaulted her while giving her cash and gifts. She said he also made money by selling her to other men for sex.
An investigation by the Washington Post found that authorities had evidence, including video, that Volar was abusing about a dozen girls including Kizer – all of whom appeared to be underage.
Four months before Volar died, police arrested him on charges of sexual assault but released him the same day.
Police said that Kizer travelled from Milwaukee to Volar’s home in Kenosha in June 2018 armed with a gun. She shot him twice in the head, set his house on fire and took his car.
Prosecutors said the killing was pre-meditated, and part of a scheme to steal Kizer’s car. Lawyers for Kizer argued that she acted in self-defence.
Kizer’s case had tested the leniency granted to victims of sex trafficking. Some states have implemented laws – called “affirmative defence” provisions – that protect victims from some charges including prostitution or theft, if those actions were the result of being trafficked.
Kizer had tested whether an “affirmative defence” for trafficking victims could be used for homicide. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled she could.
The ruling allowed Kizer to use evidence to demonstrate her abuse at the time of the crime. The case attracted widespread attention and Kizer received support from activists in the #MeToo movement.
She ultimately chose a plea deal to avoid risking a possible life sentence at trial.
“I get to try to move on,” Kizer told the Washington Post in an interview from jail this year.
She has already served more than a year and half of her sentence. She will face five years of extended supervision after her eventual release.