Enacts the sex trafficking accountability act

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Democratic10
• Republican1

This bill has cosponsors from more than one party.

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◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Liz Krueger says this is needed

When Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000, it made a deliberate choice to define a "commercial sex act" as any sex act "on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person." The purchase of sexual acts is not limited to the exchange of money. In 2015, Congress amended the TVPA's definition of sex trafficking to make clear that purchasers of commercial sex acts are criminally liable as perpetrators in the chain of sex trafficking. New York's prostitution statutes were written around a simpler model: a pimp, a victim and a fee. The result is two gaps that leave categories of exploitation the TVPA has covered for 25 years beyond the reach of state law. This bill closes both and aligns New York with federal law, which defines sex trafficking as "the recruitment, harboring, transpor- tation, provision, obtaining, patronizing or soliciting of a person for a commercial sex act." The first gap runs through section 230.02, which defines patronizing entirely in terms of a "fee." A sex buyer who provides housing, drugs, gifts, promises of a modeling career, or other non-cash benefits in exchange for sexual access is not, in the plain language of the statute, patronizing a person for prostitution -- even if the exploitation is indistinguishable from a cash transaction from the victim's perspective. The 2000 TVPA and its reauthorizations recognize this conduct. New York has not. The second is deeper. Section 230.15(1) defines "advancing prostitution" as conduct by a person acting "other than as a person in prostitution or as a patron thereof." Because the sex trafficking statute in section 230.34 is predicated on that definition, this patron exclusion travels into the trafficking law as well. An individual who recruits victims, arranges their transportation, provides premises and organizes a prosti- tution enterprise for their own sexual use and abuse cannot be charged with sex trafficking or any promoting prostitution offense under New York law. They are, no matter what they do, a patron. The TVPA, appro- priately, draws no such line. Many sex traffickers and pimps fall under this criminal liability exemption, whereby they both traffic vulnerable persons, mostly women, and patronize them for their own sexual use and abuse. Among the high- visibility federal cases of sex trafficking that exactly showcase these gaps in New York include the federal prosecutions of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, hip-hop music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch Mike Jeffries, and real estate tycoons Oren, Alon, and Tal Alexander. Each of these accused sex traffickers used their victims for their own use and could not be held accountable for such crimes in New York under current law. For example, Epstein recruited women and girls, paid others to recruit more, provided promises and orchestrated access to victims -not just for others but for his own sexual gratification as well and through a mix of cash, gifts, employment promises and other benefits. Federal prosecutors reached him because the TVPA encompasses any valu- able exchange and includes sex buyers as part of the sex trafficking scheme. New York prosecutors could not have brought an equivalent case under state law. Epstein was, under New York's Penal Law, a patron and therefore beyond the reach of the state sex trafficking law. The non- cash arrangements that defined his network -- housing, travel, modeling contracts, drugs -- are among the most common tools traffickers use to secure access to and sustain their abuse of power over victims at every level, all beyond the reach of section 230.02. The two gaps compound each other. A sex buyer who organizes non-cash exploitation of multiple victims in New York faces neither patronizing charges for the form of payment nor trafficking charges for the conduct itself. Federal law covers both. New York covers neither. Under the current administration, federal enforcement has signi

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.