The Republic | azcentral.com

Monica Jones, a transgender Phoenix woman who garnered national attention after being charged with a controversial prostitution ordinance, plans to appeal her April conviction on Tuesday.

She'll have both legal and celebrity muscle in her corner.

Laverne Cox, an LGBT-rights advocate who has gained fame playing a transgender inmate on "Orange Is The New Black," will join Jones' legal team including attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBT and AIDS project in supporting Jones' appeal of the ordinance, according to an ACLU statement.

Jones was arrested under a Phoenix ordinance for manifesting prostitution in a prostitution sting conducted by police last year.

The law can be enforced based on a number of qualifiers, including repeated attempts to engage a passer-by in conversation, attempts to stop cars by waving at them, inquiries as to whether someone is a police officer or requesting that someone touch his or her genitals.

Attorneys for ACLU of Arizona have said the ordinance is unconstitutional, arguing at Jones' April trial that it criminalized a broad range of legal speech.

Legal director Dan Pochoda said at the time that courts in other states have vacated similar statutes.

Assistant City Prosecutor Gary Shupe said the ordinance contains an element of intent.

Jones, an activist for sex-worker rights and the LGBT community, said in an interview shortly after her conviction that the ordinance unfairly targets women, particularly women of color, transgender women and those in poverty.

The ACLU of Arizona on Monday announced that Jones planned to file her appeal on Tuesday and would be joined by Cox, best known for her role on the Netflix series based in a women's prison.

Cox, also a transgender woman of color and advocate for the LGBT community, has publicly spoken on Jones' behalf before. At the 25th annual GLAAD Awards in April, Cox called attention to Jones' plight.

"Basically means that as a trans woman of color walking in a certain neighborhood, you can be arrested for prostitution," Cox said, according to glaad.org. "There is so much work that needs to get done to make sure that never happens again."