photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Devaris L. Howard at his trial on Nov. 6, 2023, in Douglas County District Court. Howard is accused of blackmailing a woman for nude photographs of herself.

A Douglas County jury will begin deliberating a case of sexual extortion on Wednesday after a two-day trial at which the state alleged that an Alabama man repeatedly threatened a woman that he would release nude images of her from when she was just 13 years old.

The accused, Devaris Lamar Howard, 21, of Gadsden, Alabama, is charged in Douglas County District Court with two felony counts of sexual extortion. The charges relate to a series of incidents between August and October of 2022, as the Journal-World reported.

The trial began Monday, when the woman testified that she received a text message in August 2022, when she was 19, from an unknown telephone number, later identified as Howard’s, that included three nearly nude images of herself — taken when she was about 13 — that she had sent to her middle school boyfriend. The text message read “post these?” The woman said she had just started college at the University of Kansas and the message shocked her.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Tatum asked the woman what she thought the message meant, to which she replied: “It meant that they might be shared online. Obviously, I didn’t want that.”

The woman said she tried to get the anonymous messenger to identify themselves, but the messenger refused, saying only that he was “somebody she knew from middle school.” The woman said she hoped that was the end of it, and she deleted the messages. She said Monday in court was the first time she had ever seen Howard.

Howard’s attorney, Cooper Overstreet, said his client does not deny that he sent the messages but that his intent was not extortion or blackmail.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Devaris Howard, left, speaks with his attorney, Cooper Overstreet, during Howard’s trial on Nov. 7, 2023, in Douglas County District Court.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” the woman said when asked why she didn’t immediately call the police. “I was ashamed and embarrassed.”

A couple of weeks later she received another message demanding nude images, this time with a promise to pay her for them. Howard texted a photo of his forearm holding cash, and in that photo a tattoo could be seen on the arm.

The woman testified that Howard again threatened that if she did not send him or sell him photos that he would send the images of her as a teenager to her family and post them online.

When Howard began detailing personal information about her family, she said she knew he was serious and that out of fear she sent three nude images of herself. The woman said she hoped again that it would stop after that, but she began saving her correspondence with the anonymous messenger.

Over the next few weeks the messages continued and turned from demanding to a more “friendly” tone, she said; the two talked about their time in college, and she still had no idea with whom she was communicating.

She said she engaged him, hoping that the interactions would humanize her to him so that he would stop. She often reminded the man that he was blackmailing her and that he was in possession of child pornography by having pictures of her when she was so young, she said.

One morning the woman woke up to a message that instructed her to “check out your new insta” along with a screenshot of an Instagram profile in her name, and the profile picture was one of the nude images that she had sent earlier in the month, she said.

The woman said she “panicked” and begged the man to remove the profile, but he refused to do so unless she sent him more photos. Howard gave her an ultimatum that she must add him as a friend on Snapchat or else he would leave the profile up and add more photos, she said.

“I felt as if I had no other option,” the woman testified.

After she connected with the man on Snapchat, he took down the Instagram profile, she said.

She said that she thought that Snapchat would be safer forum because Snapchat deletes messages after they are viewed by the recipient. The demands for nude images continued, and the woman said she did what she could to placate the man. At one point she had a video phone call with the man in which she displayed her nude body in the shower.

The woman said in October of 2022 that she was finally fed up with the man’s demands after he said he was going to be in the Lawrence area and that he wanted to meet for sex.

“I couldn’t do it anymore. I sent photos thinking it would end, and it didn’t,” the woman testified.

The woman said she told her mother, who immediately called the police, and the woman gave her phone to be examined for evidence and for police to attempt to find out who the woman had been in contact with.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Devaris Howard, from left, Detective Joshua Leitner, attorney Cooper Overstreet and Chief Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Tatum are pictured during a trial for Howard on Nov. 7, 2023, in Douglas County District Court. The attorneys met with Judge Amy Hanley multiple times during trial for Overstreet to raise objections to the state’s evidence.

Tatum presented downloaded text messages that showed she received another message from Howard while she was reporting the incident and she told Howard that she was reporting him. Howard responded that it wouldn’t matter because he was “no longer in Kansas” and that he had “great lawyers.”

Lawrence Police Detective Joshua Leitner testified that he entered the unknown telephone number into a basic online phone book search, and it quickly brought back Howard’s name and general location in Alabama.

He said he contacted local law enforcement in Alabama, who began to help locate Howard but that officers there could not verify an address and eventually just called the telephone number, which Howard answered. Alabama police then asked Howard to turn himself in, which Howard did. Howard also surrendered his phone and password, Leitner said.

A few weeks after the woman told Howard she had reported him, Howard sent another message that said “waiting on the charges” and that he “wanted to be cool” with the woman. Howard messaged that he was trying to have a relationship with another woman at KU and he didn’t want any trouble, Leitner said.

When the woman did not reply to the message, Howard sent her a video of herself, which he had recorded with a second device, during a video chat that showed close up images of her genitals and a message that said, “I have this but I’m saying I’m done. It can be deleted,” Leitner said.

Leitner said he told the woman Howard’s name, and she then looked him up on social media and she identified Howard by his distinct twisted braid hairstyle. Leitner said police in Alabama photographed Howard’sforearm tattoo and it matched the tattooed forearm holding cash in one of the first messages that the woman received.

The original photos that Howard sent to the woman were never recovered, Leitner said. He said he may have found the photos on Howard’s phone but that he could not differentiate those photos from other nude images that Howard possessed, and the woman did not have copies for Leitner to compare them to.

Howard declined to testify on his own behalf.

In closing remarks, Tatum said that the evidence against Howard was overwhelming and that what Howard did was not physically violent but was clearly damaging.

“It may be just as cruel as threatening someone with a knife,” Tatum said.

Tatum said the woman made it clear that she never wanted to send Howard photos of herself and that she repeatedly told him that he was blackmailing her and that she didn’t know who Howard was. Tatum added that Howard at no point disputed those accusations.

Howard’s attorney, Overstreet, said in closing remarks that the messages that the woman deleted of her and Howard’s first exchange were evidence that the woman had something to hide. He said that the woman was not forced to send Howard any photos but that she likely exchanged the photos for money, then deleted evidence of it, and that the two were in a flirtatious relationship.

Overstreet said the woman was afraid of getting in trouble for having created child pornography of herself as a teen and wanted to pin it on Howard. He said that Howard had the woman’s phone number and Cash App information a month before the woman claims the messages began.

Tatum rebutted, saying that investigators never found any exchange of money on Cash App or using any other cash transfer methods.

Overstreet said it was too suspicious that Howard would have the images of the woman as a child and that the boyfriend whom the woman originally sent the photos to was never questioned by investigators.

“These two were consenting adults, doing what young people do,” Overstreet said.

He said the text messages that the woman deleted and all of the messages exchanged on Snapchat would have shown that the woman was agreeable to the situation.

Overstreet said that Howard never denied sending the woman any messages but that the whole thing was consensual. He said Howard never deleted any messages and gave police his phone and password upon request.

The trial concluded at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, and the jury will begin deliberations at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Howard is currently in custody at the Douglas County Jail and is being held on a $15,000 bond that was reinstated at Overstreet’s request after new, unspecified charges were filed against Howard in Alabama. Overstreet said that reinstating his bond here would prevent Alabama law enforcement from extraditing Howard out of state.