By Asher Stockler | 18 July 2019
NEWSWEEK — Federal prosecutions of sex trafficking under the same law that is currently being used to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein have decreased each year under the Trump administration, according to a new analysis from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) system.
If the current pace of sex trafficking prosecutions remains, the number of these cases the Justice Department decides to prosecute will have fallen nearly 27 percent year over year by the end of September. This represents a steep reversal of Obama-era trends that saw sex trafficking prosecutions rise nearly every year and more than double over the eight-year period from 2009 through 2016.
Epstein is the multimillionaire financier who pleaded guilty to minor sex offenses in Florida over a decade ago, the result of a generous plea deal that kept him from facing more serious federal sex trafficking charges. After recent public uproar over the terms of his plea deal, federal prosecutors in New York decided to pursue sex trafficking charges against Epstein for similar conduct he is alleged to have engaged in at his mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Compared with just five years ago, prosecutions under the same sex trafficking statute used against Epstein will have fallen 32 percent by the end of fiscal year 2019. […]
SEE page 492 of “Trafficking of Persons Report 2019”
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