Prescott v. State

• Citation: 357 Ga.App. 375,850 S.E.2d 812
• Decision Date: 26 October 2020
• Docket Number: A20A1028
• Parties: PRESCOTT v. The STATE.
• Court: United States Court of Appeals (Georgia)

357 Ga.App. 375

850 S.E.2d 812

PRESCOTT

v.The STATE.

A20A1028

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

October 26, 2020

Shavon J. Prescott, pro se.

Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Lyndsey H. Rudder, Kevin C. Armstrong, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.

Hodges, Judge.

Following a jury trial, the Superior Court of Fulton County entered a judgment of conviction against Shavon Jabbar Prescott for two counts of aggravated sodomy ( OCGA § 16-6-2 ), three counts of aggravated assault (family violence) ( OCGA § 16-5-21 ) (2011), two counts of battery (family violence) ( OCGA § 16-5-23.1 ) (2011),¹ and one count each of trafficking of persons for labor or sexual servitude ( OCGA § 16-5-46 ) (2011), pimping ( OCGA § 16-6-11 ), pandering ( OCGA § 16-6-12 ), false imprisonment ( OCGA § 16-5-41 ), aggravated assault with a deadly weapon ( OCGA § 16-5-21 ) (2011), and giving false information to a law enforcement officer ( OCGA § 16-10-25 ). Prescott appeals pro se from the trial court's denial of his motion for new trial as amended, raising 30 enumerations of error. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

Viewed in a light most favorable to the jury's verdict,² the evidence revealed that the victim met a man named "Jehovah Israel," later identified as Prescott, at a bar in January 2013. The two exchanged telephone numbers, texted, and eventually started dating. During their first date, Prescott stated that he went by the nickname "Hova," which was short for "Jehovah." On their third date in February 2013, the victim shared, during dinner, that she needed to find another job in order to find a place to live on her own. To this point, the victim did not suspect anything was wrong with Prescott or feel concern that he was a violent person. As they drove off after dinner, Prescott asked the victim if she was still interested in finding a job and stated that he had a job for her: "It may not be what you want, but at least you'll be making money." The victim thought Prescott was referring to selling drugs and declined, and the two "laughed it off...." However, Prescott then said, "[w]ell, you may not want to do it, but you're going to ho for me." Prescott then produced a small handgun and pointed it at the victim's head.

At some point during their drive, Prescott took the victim's mobile telephone. The victim began screaming, and Prescott kept saying, "[b]itch, shut up." Prescott drove to a house on Toccoa Circle in Union City, Fulton County, pulled into the garage, and pulled the victim into the house by her arm. Once inside, Prescott began punching the victim, and he then pulled her upstairs and forced her to perform fellatio on him. Prescott then made her sit in front of him as he yelled at her that she would be engaging in sex acts with other men. He instructed her to go downstairs, open the front door, take cash from the customer (whom Prescott referred to as "[t]ricks or plays"), bring the money to him, and then go back downstairs to perform sex acts with the customer. During such acts, Prescott would position himself from an upstairs vantage point that allowed him to see the victim and the customer; he told the victim that if she attempted to signal the customer or ask for help, he would kill her and the customer.

The victim's first experience with a "trick" came later that evening. Prescott gave the victim liquor in an attempt to calm her nerves. Apparently noticing the victim was nervous, the customer asked the victim if she was okay, and she responded that she was, fearful that Prescott would kill her. The victim then had sex with the customer, followed by other customers that same evening and every day for the next several days. Through threats to kill her and her family, Prescott detained the victim at the residence for the next several weeks. Prescott purchased clothes for the victim to wear, requiring that she wear only a bra, shorts, and heels or boots. He also instructed her to wear a wig in order to "look the part" and to prevent her identification with her real hair. When he ultimately began allowing the victim to answer her telephone to speak with potential "tricks," Prescott ordered her what to say and struck her when she spoke "too proper," telling her to "talk slang."

Based upon Prescott's initial instructions to her, the victim felt that he had engaged in this conduct before. The State introduced advertisements by "Hova" imploring the recipient to "[c]ome get with a young hustler who is about that life. I will provide a place, fly whip to ride in, and whatever you need." The victim identified the person in the advertisements as Prescott. The victim also learned that she had been advertised on backpage.com, "a site where men or even women could go to try to find someone to have sex with[,]" using photographs taken from the telephone Prescott confiscated from the victim. In addition, the victim discovered that Prescott was using the false name of "Tamar Byirt," taken from a stolen driver's license.

During the time that the victim served Prescott, he punched her, kicked her, spat upon her, and, on one occasion, pistol-whipped her. In another encounter, after the victim remarked that a singer on television looked handsome, Prescott ordered her into the bathroom, told her not to "ever make a comment about another dude," and burned her arm with an iron. Because she was scared of Prescott, the victim began telling him that she loved him and would "try to do any and everything he asked [her] to do right." Prescott also took the victim to South Carolina and offered her for sex acts from a hotel room.

In April 2013, Prescott and the victim gathered her possessions, and she moved in with him. Eventually, Prescott allowed the victim to speak with her mother and sister — as he sat next to her holding a handgun. The victim pretended that everything was okay. Prescott also allowed the victim to meet her mother and sister for a meal in May 2013, and the victim again pretended that nothing was wrong. Although both her mother and sister noticed the burn injury on her arm, the victim claimed that she had simply dropped a hot curling iron on her arm. Prescott threatened to kill the victim and her family if she ever sought help from them.

Meanwhile, Prescott continued to abuse the victim in other ways. In addition to forcing the victim to perform sex acts with visitors, Prescott also forced her to perform anal intercourse and fellatio with him. Prescott also required the victim to continue meeting visitors while on her menstrual cycle. The victim slept in the same room with Prescott, and if she moved, he moved.

The victim later met Lauren Blair, whom the victim knew as "Renee," when Blair occasionally visited Prescott at his house for sex. When the victim first met Blair, she cried out to Blair and begged to leave with her. Instead of helping the victim, Blair told Prescott what she said. Prescott then charged the victim, grabbed her shirt, and said she "wasn't going anywhere" and that she was "his."³

Prescott also used the victim to recruit other women in clubs for prostitution and once used the victim to approach a woman named "Fancy" whom Prescott and the victim saw walking down the street one day. A couple of days later, Prescott and the victim picked up Fancy and brought her to the house on Toccoa Circle. Although the victim did not hear Prescott giving Fancy any instructions, he forced Fancy and the victim to perform sex acts on each other, on himself, and with visitors. The victim also instructed Fancy on how she was to act with the customers. Prescott also physically abused the victim in front of Fancy.

Prescott's racket began to unravel when a police officer showed up at his door one day. Shortly after a customer arrived for sex, the officer knocked on the door; the victim answered the door, and the officer asked if someone named "Dominique" lived there. Not knowing Fancy's real name, the victim replied "no," but said a woman named "Fancy" lived there. A woman standing with the officer exclaimed, "that's my daughter," and the officer asked the victim to bring Fancy to the door. The victim complied, but did not then call out for help herself; instead, she lied to the officer because she thought she was "in big trouble." During this encounter, Prescott was hiding inside the house. The customer exited the house with the victim, and the officer found Prescott during a search of the house; Prescott gave his name as "Tamar Byirt." The officer briefly detained the three, took their identification cards, and released Prescott and the customer. The officer placed Dominique in custody following an altercation and left the scene.

In June 2013, Prescott confronted the victim about money he thought was missing from prepaid cards he used to place advertisements on backpage.com. When she said she did not have any money, Prescott said, "You have one minute to find my money or it's going to get real ugly." When the victim again protested, he pistol-whipped her on the head so violently that she urinated and defecated on herself and bled from her eye. He also began choking her. She then claimed to know where some money was hidden downstairs; however, that was a ploy to attempt escape. Prescott grabbed her, slammed her to the floor, and began kicking, punching, and spitting on her. He then took her to an upstairs bathroom, forced her into the shower, closed the curtain, pulled out a handgun, and said, "I'm going to kill you. You better tell me what you're doing with my money." The victim lied and said she gave money to her mother. Prescott then told the victim he forgave her, said, "[w]hat are we going to do about your family[,]" and forced the victim to perform fellatio on him and kiss his feet. She later used a towel to wipe the blood from her eye.

Prescott's final degradation occurred on June 18, 2013. Prescott was again unable to use a prepaid card to purchase an advertisement on backpage.com, so he threw the victim on the bed,...