1/24/2015 — Dallas, TX – (as published at DallasNews.com by Tasha Tsiaperas)
Crack was her pimp.
For six years, 34-year-old Nina Martin was trapped in a cycle of getting high and selling her body on Dallas streets to earn money for her next fix. She was in and out of jail. She was raped. She was abused.
Her dangerous lifestyle didn’t change until 2012, when Martin went before state District Judge Lena Levario, who ran a Dallas County specialty court for women facing significant jail time after multiple prostitution arrests.
She was told: Quit the sex business, get clean, go to counseling, and you won’t have to spend years behind bars.
It was a second chance at life, and Martin took it.
Levario had trouble staying objective when she took over the specialty court program in 2010 — dubbed Strengthening, Transition and Recovery, or STAR Court.
She would cry reading some of the files of those who appeared before her bench — stories of physical and sexual abuse, of women who simply didn’t know how to live life off the streets.
“I find myself competing with the pimps over these women’s souls,” Levario said. “We have to get them thinking that they’re different people, that they’re new people, that they don’t need to show off their body to get respect.”
Over time, she learned that the women had a greater chance at success if she was tough on them.
“A judge is not going to be able to help anyone and a therapist is not going to be able to help anyone if they sit there and cry along with them and pat them and say, ‘Oh you poor thing.’”
During the past two years, 60 women have entered STAR. Of those, 16 have finished the program and 18 are still going through it. Levario oversaw it until the end of December, when her term ended and state District Judge Elizabeth Frizell took over STAR Court.
That was the same month Martin “graduated” after two years of intensive counseling, check-ins with her probation officer and routine drug testing.
‘I was no longer me’
Martin started smoking marijuana when she was 14. By 19, she was snorting cocaine, and at 26, she turned to crack for a better high. That’s when she started selling her body.
“I was no longer me,” she said. “My pimp was the drug. I got up and went to sleep when it said.”
Sometimes she would turn 10 tricks in a day to barely make $300, or she would have sex in exchange for drugs. Martin hit rock bottom in 2011. A customer beat her and raped her. Instead of seeking help, Martin sought another john.
“I got right back up and went right back out to the same corner, beat up, bruised, pride gone,” she said. “It was like the definition of insanity, thinking that the next car I get into won’t do this to me.”
It wasn’t long before Martin ended up in Levario’s court after another prostitution arrest. She faced two years in state prison. The stern judge terrified her at first.
“She showed me tough love, like the toughest that you can get. She has life or death in the power of her hand. It was either you do right, or you go to jail. Jail is not where I want to be,” Martin said.
The program requires the women to undergo group therapy, visit the court regularly and seek counseling.
“As much effort as we put into getting high, staying high and turning tricks, we have to put into staying sober,” Martin said.
There’s no magic bullet to end the cycle of drug abuse and physical abuse that often accompanies prostitution. And STAR Court targets “the toughest of the tough,” Levario said.
But the women who complete the program are 30 percent less likely to prostitute themselves again, Levario said. “That’s a big deal with this population.”
The effort doesn’t always work. Many women can’t keep up with the stringent rules, and some are drawn back to controlling lovers and pimps — or an inherited lifestyle of misery.
Lindsay’s father was a pimp, and her mother is still a prostitute.
She was 12 when she turned her first trick to feed her mother’s heroin addiction. It took a long time to learn how to walk away from that life.
“A lot of people were born into this way of life like I was. It’s the only thing I’ve ever known,” said Lindsay, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity. “All you know is ho’ing and drugs, so when something legit is presented to you, you don’t know how to accept it.”
Lindsay, 31, moved from Oklahoma to Texas as a teenager. She moved from place to place, was beaten by boyfriends and pimps alike and started regularly using crack. She estimates she was arrested about 30 times, and she spent six months in a state jail on a prostitution charge.
But that cycle stopped when Lindsay moved into the Salvation Army’s shelter for abused women and went through the STAR Court program. Much like Martin, the programs offered Lindsay a second chance. Although she is currently unable to work because of health issues, Lindsay said she hopes she’ll be able to continue making improvements in her life.
Her story
Because of her rehabilitative efforts through STAR Court, Martin was released from her probation early for good behavior. She is nearing three years of sobriety and continues to go twice a week to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and regularly sees a counselor — all part of the same effort that started in STAR Court.
She has a 2-month-old son and is learning how to be a better parent while raising her fifth child. It was her first pregnancy while staying completely clean and sober, and she has sweeter memories this time around.
“I’ll never forget him kicking in my stomach like he’s doing jumping jacks,” she said.
Her sons, 7 and 17, live with her in Dallas, but her two daughters still live with her parents in Fort Worth. She hopes to regain custody of them when she’s ready.
“I see the consequences of my actions through my kids. And it is very, very, very hard not to just go get a whole bottle of wine or something to numb me,” Martin said. “But I don’t need to be numb. I need to learn how to cope with this. I need to be their mother.”
Martin works full time as a peer specialist helping others battling drug addiction. She said she likes to tell her story in the hope that others can change their lives like she did.
“I used to be embarrassed to say ‘prostitution.’ I used to say it real low, but now I don’t care what you think,” she said. “It doesn’t define who I am today. That’s my past. There’s nothing I can do to change it, so just take me at face value. This is me now.”
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