8th Circuit Rules Sex Trafficking Act Applies to Customers
TO AVOID - Never discuss any sex act or abbreviations for money. Only respond to ads that state an hourly rate for companionship. Never tip for a sex act like in a massage parlor. If you break these rules be sure companion or massage person is over age 18 since in addition to up to 15 years in prison for child sex trafficking (vs 10 years if adult) it is also statutory rape. In police training they assume any ad that says age 26 or younger may actually be a child pretending to be an adult.
The penalty for sex trafficking is up to 10 years in prison if consenting adult and up to 15 yrs if coerced or a minor.
In 2013 the 8th Circuit said “there is no exception for a customer.” This decision with extensive 17 page published Appeals Court opinion may encourage more customer arrests since trafficking law seems to clearly apply to the “clients” The Appeals Court reversed the lower Court which found the Act did not include customers. That is now reversed with a strong opinion.
The 8th Circuit ruled:”Nothing in the text of Sec 1591 expressly limits its provisions to suppliers or suggests Congress intended categorically to exclude purchasers or consumers (clients) of commercial sex acts.” The court rules that “whoever” and “obtains” in the Act applies to customers.
The case is United States v. Daron Lee Jungers who sadly committed suicide the day before sentencing. The case involved underaged girls advertised on bp so he faced up to 15 years in prison vs 10 yrs if it was an adult. He agreed to pay $60 for oral sex.
http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/man...9bb2963f4.html
There are many cases convicting anyone who places an ad on bp etc for a prostitute is guilty of sex trafficking. Also there is Federal jurisdiction under interstate commerce when trafficking is online going through servers in various states (United States v. Myers), or by telephone. The 11th Circuit in U.S. vs Evans ruled even using a condom manufactured outside of the state was interstate commerce. Unlike the Mann Act there is no requirement that sex trafficked person cross state lines.
After 8 sex trafficking arrests including 4 “clients” in Denver March 2013, Billie McIntire, who heads an advocacy group called the Sex Workers Alliance Network, believes it is important that laws distinguish between those who work in the industry by choice from those who are being trafficked.
McIntire says the issue of sex trafficking has been seized by activist groups she describes as "abolitionist feminists" and members of ultra-conservative Christian groups, as a way to help push their desire to eradicate the sex industry entirely.
Sex trafficking and the “rescue industry” is getting huge grants and donations using the sham its only about children and forced prostitution. “The law, as it’s written, makes the assumption that nobody would possibly ever get into the line of work unless they were brainwashed or forced into it, or they were simply out of control and could not control their bodies,” said Allen Lichtenstein, the ACLU’s legal counsel.
In the July 2013 3 day FBI operation 28 adults arrested in Phoenix but no data on breakdown of sexworkers vs customers. In Chicago 323 adults were arrested but no break-down and 2 underaged “rescued” and arrested. In Chicago the Daily Heard reports, “ Charges stemming from the effort include adult and juvenile felony sex trafficking.”
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