A Minneapolis man serving 85 years in federal prison for sex trafficking has sued one of his accusers who wrote a trilogy on surviving his notorious family business.

Eleana Ross is the author, a sex trafficking victim advocate in St. Cloud who self-published the books in 2020. She embarked on a public speaking career and shared her story on Minnesota Public Radio.

In the lawsuit filed recently in Hennepin County, plaintiff Derry Evans faces significant hurdles given First Amendment issues involved. He alleges that Ross defamed him and caused harm to his reputation, despite a conviction and prison sentence for the crimes she detailed.

Evans will have to prove that Ross, who also goes by the last name Lukes, intended to cause harm by sharing her experience, legal experts say. Proving reputation damage may be difficult given Evans’ record: conspiring to transport women for the purpose of prostitution, transporting a minor for prostitution, and money laundering. The 51-year-old is incarcerated at high-security federal prison in Colorado, with a 2073 release date.

Evans and a dozen members of his family spanning three generations were indicted in 1999. It was the largest federal prosecution of a juvenile sex trafficking ring in U.S. history, according to local and nationwide news reports. The family business, headquartered in north Minneapolis, targeted as many as 50 teenage girls who were trafficked in 24 states and Canada throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

“It is possible for a plaintiff to have such a bad reputation going into the case that it is effectively impossible to make the reputation worse,” said Jeffrey Hermes, deputy director at the Media Law Resource Center in New York City.

Evans’ St. Paul attorney, Nico Ratkowski, declined to comment. Ross is represented by Minneapolis-based attorneys Jacob Elrich and Kevin Hofman, who also declined to comment, but said they deny the lawsuit’s allegations against Ross.

Ross filed a counterclaim seeking monetary damages for “being assaulted, targeted and trafficked by this entire family, ongoing trauma, PTSD and for making accusations against me, a victim in Derry Evans’ criminal convictions.”

Evans’ lawsuit lists 16 claims of alleged defamatory statements in the first and second books. Half of the allegations focus on dates and ages that are allegedly incorrect. Specifically, it states that Evans was incarcerated between 1993 and 1995, so any claims made by Ross of Evans having done anything criminal in 1994 are allegedly fabricated.

Ross, 41, refers to other women who were sex trafficked and abused by Evans, using pseudonyms to protect their identities. Evans’ lawsuit claims allegations related to these women are false. Evans also claims he didn’t abuse, coerce or brainwash Ross.

Comparing the books with her grand jury testimony in Evans’ federal trial out of Missouri, the lawsuit alleges that Ross contradicted herself.

But Evans can’t try to relitigate claims already conclusively proven in the federal trial, said David Olsen, a Minneapolis attorney who represented former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura in a high-profile defamation lawsuit.

“Most defamation cases are uphill battles from the plaintiff’s standpoint, and this one has a very steep hill,” Olsen said.

Evans can’t argue he’s not a sex trafficker in his civil case, Olsen said, and because he is arguably a public figure and his convictions were newsworthy, that creates an even higher burden for Evans to prove falsity by clear and convincing evidence.

Mike Steenson, a Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor, said that just because someone is incarcerated doesn’t mean they can’t be defamed. But he said Minnesota recognizes the legal doctrine that a statement or communication is substantially accurate if its essence — not every word — is true.

“You shouldn’t be able to hold somebody liable for telling the truth,” Steenson said.

Evans’ mother, Alice Turner of St. Paul, is also a listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. She was never convicted of anything related to the sex trafficking ring. She claims there are two photos of her hugging Evans used without her permission.

Hermes said with a case this high-profile, it may be difficult to make right to privacy claims when it’s a matter of public concern.

Evans also listed Barnes & Noble and Amazon in the lawsuit for selling the books, but Amazon was dismissed since the books are no longer available for purchase on the website. Ross confirmed this in an email but declined to comment further. They also appear unavailable on the Barnes & Noble website.

The lawsuit claims the books are “littered with false statements and claims that cause large portions of the contents of Ms. Ross’ books to constitute fiction, despite being sold as nonfiction.” Ratkowski argues that by advertising the books as true stories, it induces more people to purchase them, and that Ross’ motive was for commercial profits and acclaim.

Hermes said hypothetically, if a jury found that Ross was intentionally lying, that could prove fault. But minor errors, inconsistencies or misremembering an event doesn’t render the entire body of work false.

“Somebody who’s writing a factual book would ordinarily not need the permission of real people that they’re talking about in order to write about them,” Hermes said. “Think what that would do to memoir, think what that would do to many genres of nonfiction book if an individual could veto their coverage.”