Cyntoia Brown’s Wrongful Conviction Story

You may have scrolled past the story of 29-year-old Cyntoia Brown while browsing on social media earlier this week, as many celebs and news/gossip accounts have been publicizing the story of the circumstances that led to her sentencing to life in prison.

Cyntoia was convicted of murder at age 16, after shooting a 43-year-old “John” in the back of the head while being sex trafficked against her will. She was placed in a maximum security prison and has been living behind bars for the past 13 years. She’ll apparently be eligible for parole sometime around her 69th birthday.

Cyntoia, the daughter of a raped teenager who drank and did crack cocaine throughout her pregnancy according to the documentary on her sentencing, was a product of the Tennessee foster care system. She apparently found no real guidance or support system in the homes she was dwelling in, and according to Affinity, fell into drug use of her own and abusive relationships with adult men when she was only middle-school-aged herself.

One such relationship — with a then 24-year-old pimp by the street name of “Cut Throat” — led to her living from dive motel to dive motel and being forced to turn tricks for money while high on cocaine, all at his command/bidding. Via Spokesman:

He abused her physically and sexually. She said he once choked her until she passed out. Other times he pulled a gun on her.

“He would explain to me that some people were born whores, and that I was one, and I was a slut, and nobody’d want me but him, and the best thing I could do was just learn to be a good whore,” she testified.

He forced her to prostitute herself so that they would have money to live.

Hit the flip for more of Cyntoia’s story…

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Cyntoia’s life changed forever when 43-year-old real estate agent Johnny Allen picked the then-16-year-old up for a night of “fun.” Via First To Know:

Allen had picked her up in front of a Nashville, Tennessee, Sonic drive-in for sex. After negotiating on a price of $150, he then brought her back to his home, even though she suggested they check-in at a local hotel. When they arrived, she testified that they sat and ate their dinner and talked for a while. He allegedly told her that he had previously trained in the Army and was an expert marksman. That’s when she was shown a few of his firearms — a double-barrel shotgun, a .22 caliber rifle, and a chrome pistol.

The more they chatted, the more Brown claims she began fearing for her life, that something wasn’t quite right.

Throughout the night, Cyntoia refused Allen’s advances, up until the point that they were lying in bed together. After a final rejection, Allen allegedly turned away from Brown and reached on the side of the bed. Fearing that he was reaching for a gun to threaten or kill her with, she grabbed a .40 cal pistol that Cut-Throat had given her for protection and shot him in the back of the head. She grabbed a few of his guns and cash and took off in his car, only pausing to call police and notify them that there had been a homicide.

Cyntoia was tried as an adult, and sentenced to 51 years in prison for killing the adult man seeking paid sex with a child in what she believed was self-defense.

With the conversation of excessive sentencing coming to the forefront recently, many a public face has taken up her cause. Hit the flip…