An up-and-coming Twin Cities photographer is now charged in three separate cases involving the sexual assault and imprisonment of women.
The latest charges of criminal sexual assault, domestic assault and false imprisonment were filed against 28-year-old Den Zell James Gilliard Tuesday.
A criminal complaint lays out an allegedly violent and controlling relationship that began when he reportedly contacted the victim and offered to take pictures for her website. The victim tells police that Gilliard forcibly raped her between 10 and 20 times between April of 2016 and July of 2017 when she refused to have sex with him. She says rapes sometimes involved punching and strangling her.
The victim also says Gilliard took nude pictures of her without her consent and used them to "intimidate and blackmail her."
Gilliard allegedly removed all the interior doorknobs in his home on the 4000 block of Oakland Avenue South so the victim could not leave without his approval. The victim told investigators Gilliard threatened to kill both her and her family.
Investigators went to the defendant's home and documented that knobs had been removed from a number of interior doors. They also confiscated multiple electronic devices belonging to Gilliard that are currently being analyzed by detectives.
The most recent charges against Gilliard come in the wake of cases involving two other women who say Gilliard sexually assaulted and imprisoned them as well.
Charges were filed in one case in February of 2018, that is currently scheduled to go to trial on October 6. The second case was charged out in March of 2019.
Gilliard has been featured in a number of articles that laud his real-life, "street" style that doesn't pose subjects but captures them as they are. His work has been shown in a number of prominent Twin Cities galleries, and was included in a Gordon Parks/Jamel Shabazz exhibit that opened in January at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul.
