Charged With Sex Trafficking in South Florida?

If your goal is to have a career as a serious writer, the first rule you must learn is, “Know your audience.”  If your goal is to succeed in today’s attention economy, the first rule to learn is, “Sex sells.”  Even before influencers had to compete with countless competitors for an audience who would click on the thumbnail image of the content creator with the sexiest face, no matter how many digital and surgical enhancements were on display in that thumbnail image, the producers of film and television were competing for movie tickets and advertising dollars by displaying as much flesh as they could reasonably expect to get past the censors.  The good news is that all defendants in criminal cases have the right to a public trial with an impartial jury, but the bad news is that all jurors consume media at least a little bit.  This has always made jury impartiality something of an unattainable aspiration, but the problem is even worse now in the days of infinite scroll than it was in the days of broadsheets and penny dreadfuls.  Today as in the past, people who get accused of crimes that would make for interesting novels or movies face an uphill battle if they plead not guilty to their charges and stand trial.  Here, our Miami sex crimes defense attorney explains the case of a Miami couple accused of trafficking a teenager.

Sex Trafficking Is More Than Just Plain Old Human Trafficking and More Than Just Plain Old Sex Crime

If there was ever a clickbait criminal charge, it is sex trafficking.  Most human trafficking cases involve labor trafficking, in which employers restrict the movements of their employees through violence, threats, or confiscation of identification documents.  The employers can still be convicted of labor trafficking if they coerced the workers to work and prevented them from leaving, even if they eventually paid them what they promised to pay.  Charges of sex trafficking apply if the defendant coerced someone else into performing sexual favors for the defendant’s financial gain; these sexual favors may or may not involve physical contact.  The charges could still apply if the defendant coerced the person into posing for nude photos, which the defendant later sold, for example.

It Is Possible to Get Felony Sex Crime Charges Because of Your Involvement With Someone You Never Touched

In the summer of 2024, a Miami couple got arrested for sex trafficking of a 15-year-old girl.  The trouble started when a mental health therapist checked into a Miami hotel and spent her days lounging by the pool.  A 15-year-old girl who lived nearby passed by the hotel while walking her dog, and the therapist struck up a conversation.  She hoped that her professional credentials would enable her to gain the girl’s trust, and the girl stopped to talk to her again the next time she walked her dog past the hotel.  The therapist offered the girl alcohol, but the girl refused.  She then offered the girl cannabis, which the girl accepted.

After several times smoking cannabis by the hotel pool, the therapist invited the girl to her hotel room, where she allegedly coerced the girl to film her engaging in sexual acts with another man.  Later, the therapist’s boyfriend came to the hotel room and sexually assaulted the girl.

The girl went to the police immediately after leaving the hotel room and gave a statement with her accusations.  The therapist and her boyfriend are both facing felony charges.  His most serious charge is sexual assault of a minor, and her most serious charge is sex trafficking.  The therapist has pleaded not guilty to the charges.  Although the People magazine website described the man as the therapist’s boyfriend, another source reported that the man was a drug dealer for whom the therapist sometimes provided sexual favors when she did not have enough money for drugs.  Prosecutors and judges are well aware that many criminal acts are simply manifestations of drug addiction, committed out of desperation rather than in cold blood.  This defense is more likely to get you leniency if your charges are for drug addiction, though, or even for engaging in commercial sex, rather than for a violent or sexual crime against another person, especially a person.

Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys

A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you by representing you in a criminal case, even if it is for a criminal charge that would make for effective clickbait.  Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.

Sources:

miamidade.gov/global/release.page?Mduid_release=rel1724176242178568

wild941.com/2024/08/22/psychologist-forces-15-year-old-girl-sleep/

people.com/florida-therapist-charged-with-trafficking-15-year-old-to-men-8699249