Angela Williams, 41, says she was forced into prostitution at 21 and spent years under the control of men who trafficked and abused her before one of her alleged captors was convicted and jailed.
Williams told reporters she was working as a dancer to make ends meet when she accepted a ride in 2006 that she understood would take her and other dancers to Washington, D.C. She said the trip instead ended in Las Vegas, where she was compelled to walk city streets and sleep with paying clients under the watch of a man she described as a pimp.
Raised by a single mother in a poor neighborhood of Houston, Williams said she initially took work as a stripper because she could not find steady employment after leaving school. She said the first trip began a period in which she was repeatedly isolated, made to earn money for others, and told that friends and family did not care about her.
In May 2015, Williams said she met Tyree Wright through other women she worked with. She described him as charming and athletic but said the relationship soon became one of control and violence. Williams said Wright demanded she turn over earnings and would beat her when she refused to meet clients.
Williams recounted a brutal assault in December 2016 after she had tried to move into a new apartment and escape. She said Wright appeared at her door, pulled a metal baton from a bag and struck her repeatedly. Williams said she suffered a fractured skull, breaks to her forearm and left hand, and dozens of large welts. She described being able to flag down a passerby only after Wright fled; the passerby took her to a hospital, where surgeons inserted a rod in a shattered finger and a metal plate in her arm, she said.
Over the following week Williams said she gave a statement to police and was placed in a women's shelter. She said recovery was slow and that she continues to deal with memory loss, post-traumatic stress and nightmares.
Prosecutors secured convictions against Wright in 2018. He was convicted of sex trafficking, second-degree kidnapping and battery and was sentenced to 29 years in prison, court records show. Williams was present at the sentencing, and in interviews said she felt hatred for him at that time.
Williams also testified in the prosecution of Jamal "Mally Mall" Rashid, a music producer and former reality television personality, who in 2021 pleaded guilty to charges related to running a prostitution ring and was sentenced to 33 months in federal custody.
Since the prosecutions, Williams said she has reconnected with family and moved into public work opposing human trafficking. She said therapy has helped her recovery and that she now works with organizations that aim to identify and assist survivors of sex trafficking. Williams has a six-year-old daughter and said protecting her is a central focus.
"Surviving is a choice I make every day," Williams said in an interview. She also urged other survivors to seek help and legal support, saying speaking out made it possible to hold traffickers to account.
Advocates and law enforcement officials say Williams’s account mirrors patterns seen in many trafficking cases: initial economic vulnerability, recruitment through acquaintances, isolation, coercion and violence, and a slow path to reporting and recovery. Her case contributed to prosecutions that authorities say addressed elements of a broader network that exploited women in multiple jurisdictions.
Williams’s public statements come amid renewed attention to trafficking and exploitation in the United States and abroad, and to efforts by NGOs and law enforcement to improve prevention, victim services and prosecution. She said she hopes her work with anti-trafficking groups will prevent others from experiencing what she described as "this horror industry."
Legal filings and court records in the Wright and Rashid cases provide the basis for the convictions; Williams’s account is part of the testimony and interviews surrounding those prosecutions. She continues to receive treatment for physical and psychological injuries sustained during the years she says she was under traffickers’ control.