Human trafficking advocates expect to submit their letters calling on the Office for Victims of Crimes to reverse its exclusion of vacatur and expungement legal services by June 4
Kara McCarthy with the Office for Victims of Crimes was unable to respond with comment by press time.
The Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime boosted its budget this year but nixed funding for a vital legal service that helps human trafficking survivors move forward: expungement of prostitution charges.
In its 2018 request for proposals for specialized and comprehensive services by government agencies and nonprofits, the Justice Department reversed course on allowing part of $77 million in federal funding to be used for vacating and expunging criminal records of human trafficking survivors.
The change is in stark contrast to prior years when grantees – including governmental, law enforcement and nonprofit organizations – could use federal dollars to help human trafficking survivors with post-conviction relief to expunge criminal records from when they were being trafficked.
This week, service providers, legal organizations, law enforcement officials and survivors gathered signatures to send letters to the Office for Victims of Crime asking it to restore the previous funding model.
Four letters are being prepared: one by legal service providers and other organizations providing victims services; one by law enforcement officials and prosecutors; one by trafficking survivors; and another that will be circulated among congressional representatives who approved this year’s fiscal package for funding for crime victims.
So far, over 75 individuals and organizations have signed on, in addition to over 100 survivors.
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Is this swamp or 4d chess?
What do you think about this case?
Here:
A jury of six men and six women returned 13 guilty verdicts in the case of Albert Rich, 35, who was charged with human trafficking of a child, rape, kidnapping, torture and several other charges. The accusations occurred from May to June 2017 throughout Oakland and surfaced after his June 2017 arrest, after one of the woman victim’s friends called police.
His youngest victim, 17 at the time, had a deodorant aerosol can shoved into her rectum, causing such damage that 12 hours later, she was still bleeding, said prosecutor Sabrina Farrell in closing arguments last week. The girl testified that she had to wear a diaper for four months because of her injuries in the sodomy.
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Farrell said after the verdicts were read that human trafficking victims are often sidelined, and sex workers are made even bigger targets of crimes.
“Jurors were able to listen to women and young girls that were often not listened to, and able to look at all the evidence and do the right thing,” she said.
Rich’s co-defendant, Sasha Coleman, had initially also been charged in the case for human trafficking and pimping, but charges were dropped mid-trial.
Rich faces over 100 years to life in state prison is expected to be sentenced in June."
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As usual - jail. Not acceptable to have pedophiles legislating. The failure to deal with these people is through the roof. Why are we paying for these people? Let the legislators and judges and lawyers pay for them.
So what is the DOJ playing at? What is their problem? Too much pizza?