When Dana Royce Deffenbaugh stands trial in a little over a week, prosecutors can show jurors that a girl he is accused of forcing into prostitution readily identified him, a federal judge ruled Friday.
Deffenbaugh's attorney, Blake Hendrix of Little Rock, argued in a hearing Wednesday for the suppression of the girl's identification of Deffenbaugh in a photograph shown to her by an FBI agent, saying the identification procedure used by the agent was impermissibly suggestive.
The photo was a printout of a post of Deffenbaugh and several young girls on his Facebook page. The agent showed it to the girl in an effort to determine whether the other girls in the picture were also victims and needed to be rescued.
U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes said in a written ruling in which he denied the suppression motion that the girl had earlier shown a North Little Rock police officer a photograph on her cellphone of the man she knew as "Big Face" and who she said was forcing her to have sex with other men for money.
The FBI agent, Katie Rowbotham, who received information about the case the next day from the North Little Rock officer, testified that she searched through FBI records to find several reports on "Big Face" that included photographs and identified him as Deffenbaugh. The agent said the reports were very similar to that given by the 17-year-old girl, on whose behalf a family friend had reported to police on the night of Dec. 28, 2014, that several girls were being held against their will at a North Little Rock hotel.
When Rowbotham interviewed the 17-year-old on Dec. 30, she knew the girl had already identified Deffenbaugh as "Big Face" and had provided police with a photograph she had taken of him, the judge noted in his ruling. He said Rowbotham showed the victim various photographs from Deffenbaugh's Facebook page, but didn't ask whether the man in the photographs was "Big Face" because "she already knew that he was."
The agent only showed the photos to see if the girl could identify other victims, Holmes said.
"Rowbotham had reason to be concerned that other juveniles were in danger. ... Showing the victim the Facebook photographs was not suggestive under these circumstances, but even if it were, such a procedure was necessary because it was important for law enforcement to prevent further harm to other potential victims," he said.
The 17-year-old girl told the North Little Rock officer, Eric Stockman, that she had met a woman at a gas station in North Little Rock about a month earlier, and the woman had introduced her to "Big Face," whose name the girl didn't know. The girl told the officer that the woman and "Big Face" gave her drugs, and that "Big Face" told her that she was his "ho" and that her first name no longer existed, according to the officers' testimony.
Holmes noted that according to what the girl reported, "Big Face" made it clear that if she tried to escape or refused to engage in prostitution and give him all the money, she would be harmed.
"Here, the victim saw Deffenbaugh every day for a month," Holmes said in his order, filed Thursday. "She knew him. ... The victim identified him spontaneously and with certainty. The facts do not indicate a substantial likelihood of misidentification."
Deffenbaugh, who was 30 at the time of his arrest in early 2015, is to be tried by a federal jury beginning Sept. 19 on a charge of sex trafficking of a minor, which is punishable by 15 years to life in prison if convicted, and sex trafficking by use of force or threats, which is punishable by 10 years to life if convicted.
According to the FBI agent's Dec. 31, 2014, affidavit laying out probable cause for Deffenbaugh's arrest, the 17-year-old girl said "Big Face" transported her and other females to various motels in Little Rock and North Little Rock to have sex with an average of 15 male customers a day, and sometimes as many as 25 males a day, "often without being able to sleep."
The girl reported seeing "Big Face" physically assault other prostitutes when they refused to have sex or tried to escape, the affidavit said. It said that if any of the females refused to immediately turn over the money they received from prostitution to "Big Face," they would be "severely beaten."
The affidavit said that according to the girl, "Big Face" told her that if she left, "he would find her and break her neck."
The girl said "Big Face" also made promises to her that he would take her and her family to the Bahamas and that she would make a lot of money, according to Rowbotham. The affidavit said "Big Face" took photographs of the girl in her bra and panties and posted them on the website Backpage.com to lure customers.
Metro on 09/10/2016