LISBON — A woman convicted in a sex-for-hire sting in 2024 filed another appeal trying to challenge her case, this time appealing the denial of her request for post-conviction relief.

Shanika Simmons, 42, whose address was listed as the prison in Marysville, filed the handwritten document herself with the Seventh District Court of Appeals to appeal the March 27 judgment issued by Columbiana County Common Pleas Court Judge Scott Washam.

Washam set no hearing for the request for post-conviction relief, noting that “the petition and any supporting documents do not set forth sufficient operative facts to establish substantive grounds for relief.”

He also said the claims all should have been raised previously during the trial or on direct appeal, citing the doctrine of res judicata “which furthers the principles of finality and judicial economy by preventing endless re-litigation of an issue on which a defendant has already received a full and fair opportunity to be heard.”

A jury found Simmons guilty on July 29, 2024 of fourth-degree felony promoting prostitution. She was accused of agreeing to provide sexual services and bring along a second female to provide sexual services in exchange for $450, arriving in East Palestine on Aug. 2, 2022 for the meeting with an undercover agent who posed as a buyer of sex online.

Washam sentenced her to a year in prison, giving her credit for 58 days served in jail, but then she filed the appeal of her conviction and sentence to the Seventh District Court and a stay of the sentence was approved after she had already served three months. Since then, she lost that appeal in February and in March lost her motion for reconsideration by the appellate court. She also lost her attempt to file an appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court, which declined to accept jurisdiction and denied a motion to stay execution of the sentence on April 27.

With the loss of the appeal and the motion for reconsideration by the Seventh District Court, Washam had ordered her to appear at the jail to be transferred to prison to begin serving the rest of her sentence in March, which she did. According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, she’s scheduled for release in October this year.