HUMAN TRAFFICKING: AN EVIL ENTERPRISE

Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John T. Floyd

The Houston CHRONICLE, in a front-page October 28, 2007 article entitled

“Houston a Major Hub for Human Trafficking,” reported that the U.S. State
Department estimates that approximately 17,500 people are trafficked into
the United States each year.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in February 2006 said that

“human trafficking is the exploitation and enslavement of society’s most
vulnerable members. It ranks among the most vile and degrading criminal
practices.” See: “Report on Activities to Combat Human Trafficking,” Civil
Rights Division, United States Department of Justice, p. 4 (2006)[hereinafter
DOJ Report].

The DOJ reports that human trafficking is the third most profitable criminal
enterprise after drugs and arms trafficking. Human trafficking produces $9.5
billion in profits worldwide for those who participate in this pernicious
criminal activity. Id., Houston CHRONICLE, p. A6.

The State Department further estimates that between 800,000 to 900,000

men, women and children worldwide are trafficked each year across
international borders for sex, labor, and other purposes. While human
trafficking generally involves transporting people across borders, it can
occur within a nation. Human trafficking in this country violates an
individual’s human liberty guaranteed by the Thirteenth Amendment of the
United States Constitution. Human trafficking, therefore, offends the basic
civil rights this nation guarantees to all those living within its borders.

In response to the horrors involved in global human trafficking, the

Congress of the United States enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act of 2000. See: 22 U.S.C. § 7102(8)(9)(as amended). This statute protects
victims of any “severe form of trafficking in persons” with entitlements to
certain public programs and benefits. The statute provides that a “severe
form of trafficking” includes recruitment, harboring, transportation,
provision, or detaining individuals for one of the three following purposes:

• Labor of services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion; or

• A commercial sex act, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion; or
 • If the person is under 18 years of age, any commercial sex act,
regardless of whether any form of coercion is involved.

From 2001 through 2005, the Civil Rights Division and United States
Attorneys’ Offices filed 91 trafficking cases, a 405% increase over the
previous four years. In these cases the DOJ charged 248 trafficking
defendants, a 210% increase over the previous five years. 140 of those
defendants were convicted of trafficking-related crimes. See: DOJ Report, p.
9.

The DOJ directs its investigative and prosecutorial efforts at three primary
forms of human trafficking: sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and child sex
trafficking. Under the direction of the DOJ, the FBI in 2004 launched its
“Involuntary Servitude and Slavery/Trafficking in Persons Initiative.” This
initiative spearheaded the following actions:

• Developed and disseminated a general human trafficking investigative

protocol intended to standardize human trafficking investigations by
each FBI field office. This protocol serves as an informal investigative
field-guide for the FBI field supervisors and investigators, covering
activities from the initial investigation to post-trial and post-
sentencing activities. For example, the protocol requires the prompt
removal of victims out of harm’s way and the apprehension of all
identified human trafficking subjects.
• Implemented commercial sex trafficking intelligence requirements
and disseminated those requirements to every Bureau Field
Intelligence Group. These requirements will allow the FBI to analyze
trafficking related intelligence such as trends in working conditions,
transportation routes, and countries of origin.
• Established a mechanism for agents to share information about the
initiation of human trafficking, alien smuggling, and child prostitution
cases across Bureau components.
• Expanded the Bureau’s outreach to national human trafficking victim
advocacy organizations, such as the Freedom Network and the
International Justice Mission, to establish contacts and leverages
partnerships through field offices, especially those that are partners in
the Department’s multi-disciplinary anti-trafficking task forces.
• Commenced, in October 2005, human trafficking threat assessments
in each of the nation’s 56 Bureau field offices. The threat assessments
 are intended to help the Bureau determine the nature and scope of
human trafficking and to develop a more informed response to the
criminal activity. Once completed, field offices will use their
assessments to develop more aggressive investigations and to guide
their participation in the Department’s anti-human trafficking task
force initiative, especially their work with local governmental and
non-governmental organizations.
• Created, in November 2005, a case tracking database to track and
maintain human trafficking intelligence data from the Bureau’s field
office regarding the Department’s prosecutorial decisions, identifying
emerging trends and reporting significant events in the field to the
Bureau’s Civil Rights Unit or the Crimes Against Children Unit, as
appropriate. The Bureau’s intelligence gathering is beginning to
provide the Department with critical analysis.

See: DOJ Report, p. 28-29.

Below is a brief look at the three areas of human trafficking that concerns
the DOJ the most:

1. SEX TRAFFICKING

“Sex trafficking” is prohibited by 18 U.S.C.A. § 1591 which makes it illegal

to use force or coercion to obtain persons for commercial sexual activity,
including special provisions regarding the involvement of minors. The DOJ
considers other sex activities, such as servitude for non-commercial sexual
activities (for example, sexual abuse of domestic help) or forced service in
strip clubs, as part of the commercial “sex industry.” See: DOJ Report, p. 29.

There has been a dramatic increase in prosecutions under § 1591 over the
past five years. Between 2001 and 2005 U.S. Attorneys filed 257 cases of
sex trafficking and obtained the convictions of 109 sex trafficking
defendants. See: DOJ Report, p. 30. One of those was Antonia Jimenez-
Calderson who, along with four family members, was charged with
conspiracy to recruit underage girls from the Mexican state of Tlaacla with
promises of love and marriage in the United States. The young girls were
forced into prostitution by threats of serious physical harm to their family
members in Mexico. The defendant was sentenced to 210 months on August
7, 2003. See: United States v. Jimenez-Calderson, 135 Fed. Appx. 561 (3rd
Cir. 2005).
Federal prosecutors in Texas have also been diligent in their prosecution of
TVPA cases. In a 2001 case from the Western District of Texas, a husband
and wife were convicted and sentenced to five years for bringing women
from former Soviet republics under a student exchange program and then
forcing them to work as “exotic dancers” in El Paso nightclubs. See: United
States v. Gasanov, No. 01-1423 (W.D. Tex. 2001).

In a 2004 Southern District of Texas case eight men were convicted for
being part of an alien smuggling organization that forced women to serve as
“concubines” by cooking, cleaning, and submitting to sexual demands of the
smugglers. The lead defendant in the case was sentenced to 23 years in
prison following a guilty plea. See: United States v. Soto, No. 03-341 (S.D.
Tex. 2004).

Vulnerable women are often imported into this country to work as “bar
girls” – and while the DOJ says that this activity is not “technically sex
trafficking under the TVPA” because it does not involve a sex act, it is part
of the sordid sex industry because these women are forced to entertain male
patrons by dancing and drinking with them at their pleasure. See: DOJ
Report, p. 31.In a 2002 Northern District of Texas case six Hondurans in
Fort Worth were convicted and sentenced to more than 5 years by forcing
women to repay their alien smuggling debts through forced labor as “bar
girls.” See: United States v. Molina, No. 114-A (N.D. Tex. 2002).

2. LABOR TRAFFICKING

18 U.S.C.A. § 1589 prohibits anyone from knowingly providing and

obtaining the labor of a person through threats of physical harm or physical
restraint. The DOJ says “this phenomenon commonly is found in farms,
factories, and households.” See: DOJ Report, p. 31. It occurs when persons
are subjected to coercion to stay in an employer’s service. The individual is
considered a victim of forced labor even if he/she initially chose to work for
the employer and was paid for his/her labor but is later forced to remain in
the employer’s service. Between 2001 and 2005, U.S. Attorneys filed 23
labor trafficking cases that involved 59 defendants being charged with a §
1589 violation. See: DOJ Report, p. 32.

Two other cases brought between 1996 and 2000 involved another twenty-
four defendants, including two who became the first Mexican citizens
extradited to the United States for human trafficking offenses. See: United
States v. Paoletti, No. 97-768 (E.D.N.Y. 1997)[18 defendants]; United States
v. Flores, 199 Fed. Cir. 1328 (4th Cir. 1999)[6 defendants].

Labor trafficking does not always involved imported or smuggled

immigrants. In a 2000 Southern District of Florida case three men recruited,
and hired, homeless African-American men for their orange-picking
operation. Once employed, the men were not allowed to leave. They were
held captive through beatings, threats, and debts from the “company store”
that included short term loans to buy food, cigarettes, and cocaine. The three
defendants were convicted in 2001 and sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison.
See: United States v. Michael, No. 00-14065 (S.D. Fla. 2000).

In a 2003 Western District of New York case four defendants were

convicted and sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison for recruiting young
undocumented Mexican aliens from Arizona and transporting them to New
York where they were forced to work “stoop labor” in the fields with little or
no pay and housed in filthy, overcrowded conditions under the threat of
being turned over to the Border Patrol. In that case the court rejected a
constitutional challenge that the TVPA was vague, inviting arbitrary and
discriminatory enforcement. See: United States v. Garcia, No. 02-0000,
2003 WL 22938040 (W.D. N.Y. 2003).

Like “stoop labor” cases, “domestic” labor cases represent a significant part
of the DOJ’s forced labor portfolio. These cases generally involve young
women who are forced to work long hours at low pay as nannies and maids
and who are routinely subjected to sexual abuse by their captors/employers.
See: DOJ Report, p. 32. In a 2003 Maryland case a U.S. citizen of
Cameroonian origin brought an 11-year-old girl from Cameroon into this
country and forced her to perform household chores and care for two
children. The 11-year-old was kept isolated, was not paid, was not allowed
to attend school, and was constantly subjected to verbal and physical abuse,
including being beaten with a cable, a high-heeled shoe, and a metal broom
handle. The Cameroonian defendant was sentenced to 17 years in prison
after being convicted in the case. See: United States v. Mubang, No. 03-
0539 (D.Md. 2003).

3. CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING

18 U.S.C.A. § 1591(a)(1) prohibits enticing a minor to engage in a
commercial sex act and 18 U.S.C.A. § 2422(b) prohibits enticing a minor to
engage in prostitution. To confront what the DOJ calls the “evil of sex
tourism” involving children, the Congress in 2003 passed the “Prosecutorial
Remedies and Other Tools to End Exploitation of Children Today
(PROTECT) Act. This legislation makes it a crime for anyone entering the
United States, or for any U.S. citizen to travel to another country, for the
purpose of sexually abusing children. The DOJ established a Child
Exploitation and Obscenity Section to oversee the prosecution of cases
involving the sex trafficking of minors. This section obtained at least 50 sex
tourism indictments leading to 29 convictions between 2003 and 2005 under
the PROTECT Act. See: DOJ Report, p. 34.

In a 2003 Southern District of California case an American man was

prosecuted after he traveled to the Philippines on numerous occasions over a
two-year period to have sex with children and to produce child pornography
he intended to import into the United States. He was sentenced to 3 years in
prison. See: United States v. Russell, No. 03-3283 (S.D. Cal. 2003).

With respect to cases within the borders of the United States, the TVPA
effectively augments the historical Mann Act which prohibits the interstate
transportation of individuals across state lines for prostitution or other sexual
activity by extending federal jurisdiction to cases where pimps do not cross
state lines with their minor victims. See: DOJ Report, p. 34. For example, in
a 2001 Alaska case five defendants were convicted of being part of a human
trafficking network that distributed cocaine to persons under the age of 21
and recruited minors to trade sex for money and crack cocaine. They were
sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 to 13 years following their
convictions. See: United States v. Boehm, No. 04-003 (D. Alaska 2001).

In a 2004 Miami-Dade County, Florida case two defendants were convicted

for their roles in a child prostitution ring. The court outlined the sordid facts
of that case as follows:

“… From December 2004 until May 2005, a fourteen-year-old girl (‘Jane

Doe’) worked for Evans as a prostitute in Miami-Dade County. Evans
arranged ‘dates’ for Jane Doe at local hotels, and Jane Doe gave the money
she earned on these dates to Evans. To inform Jane Doe of dates that he had
arranged, Evans called Jane Doe on a cellular telephone that she had
acquired from him. Evans also gave Jane Doe's cellular telephone number to
customers and told Jane Doe to arrange dates when customers called. During
the dates, Evans called Jane Doe on the cellular telephone to ‘check up on
her.’ Evans supplied Jane Doe with condoms for use on the dates. The
condoms were usually Lifestyle brand, which are manufactured overseas,
imported into Georgia, and then distributed throughout the United States. In
February 2005, Jane Doe was hospitalized for eleven days, during which
time she was diagnosed with AIDS. A few days after Jane Doe's release
from the hospital, Evans called her on a land-line telephone and induced her
to resume her work as a prostitute for him. Jane Doe worked for Evans until
May 2005, when she was again hospitalized for AIDS treatment.” See:
United States v. Evans, 476 F.3d 1176, 1177-78 (11th Cir. 2007).

In yet another case out of the Eleventh Circuit, the appeals court dealt with a
case that demonstrates how easy it is for a teenaged female to become a
victim of child sex trafficking. The case involves the convictions and
sentences of Mariece Sims for kidnapping in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. §
1201, sex trafficking of a minor by coercion and transporting of a minor
across state lines for prostitution purposes in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. §
1591 and 2423(a), and transporting and coercing a person for purposes of
prostitution in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 2421 and 2422(a). See: United
States v. Sims, 161 Fed.App 849 (11th Cir. 2006). The appeals court outlined
the facts of that case as follows:

“At trial, the evidence was as follows: Sims and his co-defendant, Dwayne
Thigpen, encountered the victim, Erica Owens, while selling clothes in El
Dorado, Arkansas. Sims knew Owens, and Owens entered their car
willingly. The three of them drove around and smoked marijuana; Owens
eventually fell asleep in the back seat. Owens testified that she awoke to
discover they were no longer in El Dorado, although she believed Sims
would take her home.

”The three were in a car accident in Texarkana. When the police reported to
the accident, Owens did not tell them she had been kidnapped; nor did she
try to escape. Owens testified that when the accident occurred, she did not
seek the help of police because she still believed that Sims would return her
to El Dorado. Owens further testified that Sims and Thigpen raped her in
their hotel room in Texarkana. The three next traveled to Mississippi, where,
according to Thigpen, Sims told Owens to see if she could make some
money at the hotel; Owens returned with $20, which she gave to Sims.
“Sims later drove to a truck stop where he instructed Owens to prostitute
herself. Owens returned several times without money, at one point claiming
that a trucker tried to choke her. They next drove to Atlanta, and Sims
dropped Owens off at a flea market on Metropolitan Parkway, an area
popular with prostitutes. Sims bought Owens thongs, a miniskirt and some
small shirts and again dropped her off on Metropolitan Parkway. Thigpen
testified that he and Sims watched Owens as she waited for customers.
Eventually, Owens returned with money for Sims. At one point, Owens
disappeared. Owens testified that she had tried to escape three times. She
stated that she had gone to a police station, where she was told to wait. She
became tired and went outside, where Sims found her. Sims slapped her,
told her not to disappear again, and continued to send her out on the street.

”Thigpen testified that he told Sims that he did not think Owens wanted to
prostitute herself. Sims said Owens was ‘his girl’ and that he would ‘handle’
her.

”Eventually, Owens was picked up by Atlanta Police Officer Freddie

Jenkins, Jr. Jenkins testified that he picked up Owens because she looked so
young and further that he saw a dark SUV circling the block where Owens
had been standing. Owens initially told him Jenkins she was 14 years old,
although she revised that to 16 years old when they arrived at the police
station. Jenkins took Owens to the hotel where she had been staying with
Sims and Thigpen, and she identified both Sims and his SUV.

”C.R. Whitmire, an investigator with the child exploitation unit of Atlanta's

police department, testified that Owens was smelly, shaking and wore little
clothing when she was picked up by police. Whitmire had a rape kit
administered to Owens. Georgia Bureau of Investigation expert Lisa
Hobgood testified that the semen from Owens's rape kit did not match either
Sims or Thigpen.

”After Owens returned home, Olivia Glosson, Sims's girlfriend, who is

related to Owens by marriage, urged Owens to drop the charges against
Sims. Owens agreed and provided two affidavits to the El Dorado prosecutor
recanting the statement she had made to the Atlanta police. At trial, Owens
admitted that the affidavits were false.

”The district court admitted the testimony of Sherlon Derks, the alleged
victim of a prior sexual assault by Sims, but instructed that the witness could
provide only a cursory review of the prior crime. Derks testified that one
night while she was dating Sims, he had ‘snapped’ and beat and raped her.
Although Sims was arrested, she requested that the charges be dropped after
Sims and his family threatened her.” Id., at 850-51.

SUMMARY

The following is a list of cities the DOJ has identified as “the most intense
[top twenty] trafficking jurisdictions in the country:”

• Houston
• El Paso
• Los Angeles
• Atlanta
• Chicago
• Charlotte
• Miami
• Las Vegas
• New York
• Long Island
• New Orleans
• Washington, D.C.
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• Richmond
• San Deigo
• San Francisco
• St Louis
• Seattle
• Tampa

See: DOJ Report, p. 40.

Relying upon input from FBI special agent Maritza Conde-Vazquez, the
Houston CHRONICLE reported that Houston is a popular human trafficking
market because “the city is so diverse, with large Hispanic, Asian and
Middle Eastern populations, which allow traffickers and their victims to
blend into local communities. The city’s major port and proximity to the
border also influence its position as a major distribution point for
traffickers.” Id., at A6.