How Prosecutors Pursue Sex Traffickers and Help Victims
12.10.2024
Sex trafficking in real life is different from sex trafficking in fiction. While the popular image is a victim forced into sex work through violence, the reality of these crimes is more complex. And prosecutors are accounting for that reality.
A recent Continuing Legal Education class covered recent trafficking cases, including charges against celebrity Sean Combs and the former chief executive officer of Abercrombie & Fitch, as well as how prosecutors are punishing traffickers and supporting victims in these circumstances.
The speakers were:
- Margaret Gandy, founding partner of Alcalaw and a former prosecutor at the New York County District Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
- Julina Guo, counsel/director of human trafficking prevention at the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services and co-chair of the New York State Interagency Task Force on Human Trafficking.
- Justin McNabney, executive assistant district attorney and chief of the Special Victims Division for the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
Margaret Finerty, partner at Getnick Law, moderated the discussion.
Gandy pointed out that traffickers are not solitary figures – they are often accompanied by enforcers and enablers. Both R. Kelly and Sean Combs had entourages of bodyguards, assistants and managers to cover their alleged crimes. Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, recruited victims and facilitated their exploitation.
“There is a hierarchy of abusers in a sex trafficking ring or a sex trafficking operation,” Gandy said. “We see that in state prosecutions and federal prosecutions. There are multiple people who play a role in facilitating the commercial sexual activity and who benefit from the financial gains that come from it.”
Gandy explained that federal prosecutors are using racketeering statutes to prosecute human trafficking because that includes all the people involved in a sex trafficking enterprise.
Another myth is that traffickers use just violence to keep their victims in line. While violence is not unusual, traffickers often coerce their victims in other ways – like holding on to their passports and keeping victims in debt or dependent on them for housing. In some cases, victims were promised employment opportunities. For example, the Abercrombie and Fitch CEO told his victims that he would help them with modeling careers.
Furthermore, prostitution is illegal in New York State, so traffickers can also threaten their victims that they will be arrested if they are caught.
McNabney said that it is important for courts and judges to understand the extent of a trafficker’s control over a victim, and how that can make it difficult to escape.
“It is all encompassing,” he said. “Traffickers generally tell survivors what to eat, they tell them what to wear, they give them specific amounts of money for specific things and only those specific things. They require survivors to live with them under their watch. And they are around whenever a survivor is engaging in commercial sex. And very often, unless the survivor is doing something to benefit the trafficker, the survivor is not allowed to leave the apartment where they are living.”
McNabney continued that it is important to connect survivors to social services so they can build a new life and take care of needs such as housing, childcare and living expenses. In addition, New York State’s START Act helps survivors vacate convictions for crimes committed due to being trafficked. On the federal level, the Debt Bondage Repair Act enables survivors to hide bad credit history that was the result of trafficking.
The New York State Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section sponsored the program. Watch the full session here.
