Take Action - ECPAT-USA Calls for Justice In Zephi Trevino Case

Update: Zephi Trevino has officially been certified as an adult and currently sits in jail, waiting to stand trial for crimes she didn’t commit. Her bond has been set at $750,000, while her trafficker paid $35,000 to be released. Click here to sign the petition calling for her charges to be dropped.

Seventeen-year-old Zephaniah “Zephi” Trevino spent 13 months in a Texas jail after being charged with capital murder in a case where an adult has confessed to the crime and she was being sexually exploited.

In 2019, Phillip Baldenegro and Jesse Martinez are alleged to have ambushed two men at an apartment who were there, they believed, to have sex with Zephi, who was 16 at the time. One of the men was injured and one was killed, and Baldenegro has confessed to being the one who pulled the trigger. 

Baldenegro’s attorney claims that Zephi is the one who lured the two victims to the apartment and that he and Zephi were in a consensual romantic relationship. But to hear Zephi and her parents describe the situation, it is clear that Zephi was being exploited and manipulated. Her trafficker is reported to have physically abused Zephi and threatened to harm her and her family if she told them what was happening. Zephi was sold for sex at the age of 16. There is no other way to describe the circumstances than child sex trafficking.

“I feel like abuse and sex trafficking, it doesn’t discriminate,” Crystal Trevino, Zephi’s mom, recently told Dr. Phil. “I really didn’t understand sex trafficking...the fact that it entered my house and I didn’t know it, and it walked out of my house is numbing.” 

Not only has Zephi been charged in connection with a crime committed by her trafficker, but Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot is also currently seeking to have Zephi be reclassified as an adult, ignoring that Zephi was a minor at the time of the incident. This move by the district attorney, as well as his failure to recognize and prosecute child sex trafficking, is nothing short of shocking. 

ECPAT-USA and over 100 human rights organizations have called for the dismissal of the charges against Zephi. And you can help us demand justice in this case. The hearing to certify Zephi as an adult has been postponed until Feb. 5, and it is crucial that before then advocates contact Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot and ask that the charges be dropped. You can also raise awareness of Zephi’s case by sharing the images linked here on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. A child should never be charged for the crimes of her trafficker.