What is Human Trafficking?
Forced labor or sexual exploitation of another person is known as human trafficking. According to Florida law, human trafficking occurs when you knowingly—or recklessly disregard the facts—when engaging in or financially benefiting from enticing, recruiting, obtaining, providing, maintaining, soliciting, harboring, or transporting someone else in order to exploit that individual for work or commercial sexual services.
What Does the Court Need to Prove?
If an adult is an alleged victim of human trafficking, the prosecution must prove that the person was forced or otherwise coerced into labor or commercial sexual services. In contrast, if a child is an alleged victim, the prosecutors are not required to prove that the child was forced into human trafficking.
What are the Penalties for Human Trafficking?
The criminal penalties for human trafficking depend on the type of coercion used to commit the offense, if the offense involved commercial sex activity or labor and services, and if the alleged victim is a child, disabled individual, or undocumented immigrant.
Human trafficking for labor or commercial sex services is a first-degree felony (with either a Level 7, 8, or 9 offense severity level) in Florida. A conviction is punishable by imprisonment for up to 30 years and a maximum fine of $10,000.
Human trafficking of a child or disabled individuals for commercial sex services is a life felony (with a Level 10 offense severity level), punishable by life imprisonment and a maximum fine of $10,000.
If human trafficking involves undocumented immigrants or spans more than one state, then a suspect can face federal charges. Therefore, the case will be handled in federal court and a conviction may result in imprisonment in federal prison.
Forcing another person to work, selling people, or sex trafficking children is punishable by life in federal prison. Kidnapping someone else for slavery or holding another individual or selling them in involuntary servitude carries a maximum federal prison term of 20 years.
If you have been accused of a sex crime or federal crime in Miami, contact the Law Office of Armando J. Hernandez, P.A. at (305) 400-0074 for a free case review. More than 19 years of experience in state and federal courts throughout Florida.