The Queens DA approaches commercial sex cases from two directions at once. Since May 18, 2020, the office's Human Trafficking Bureau has worked to prosecute traffickers and buyers of sex while connecting survivors with services, and a Human Trafficking Intervention Court sits at Queens Criminal Court with specially trained judges, judicial monitoring and linkages to services. Spodek Law Group P.C. defends people on both sides of that line, from a class B misdemeanor prostitution arrest to a class B felony sex trafficking indictment, and we help survivors use the defenses and vacatur the law provides. Whichever side you are on, our loyalty runs to you alone.
Prostitution and patronizing charges under Penal Law article 230.
Prostitution under Penal Law 230.00 is a class B misdemeanor, which under Penal Law 70.15 carries up to three months, and patronizing a person for prostitution in the third degree under 230.04 is a class A misdemeanor carrying up to 364 days. Those numbers look small next to a felony, yet a conviction can still surface later in background checks and immigration matters. Buyers are an announced priority for the Human Trafficking Bureau, so you should not assume a patronizing arrest in Queens will simply be waved away, and we treat it with the same care as any other charge from the first appearance.
Sex trafficking and labor trafficking accusations.
Sex trafficking under Penal Law 230.34 is a class B felony, and certain paragraphs of subdivision 5 make it a class B violent felony, which under Penal Law 70.02 carries a determinate range of 5 to 25 years. Labor trafficking under Penal Law 135.35 is a class D felony. Queens trafficking investigations can draw on the DA's Human Trafficking Bureau and, where travel is part of the story, the Airport Investigations Unit, whose own description of JFK and LaGuardia names traffickers among the problems it pursues with local, state and federal partners. We test how the People connect you to any money, messages and travel, and we look hard at whether cooperating witnesses have their own reasons to point at you.
Relief for survivors under 230.01 and CPL 440.10.
If you were arrested for prostitution because someone was compelling or trafficking you, Penal Law 230.01 provides an affirmative defense to prostitution and related charges when your participation resulted from being a victim of compelling prostitution, sex trafficking, sex trafficking of a child, or trafficking under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act. For past convictions, CPL 440.10(1)(i) allows a motion to vacate when your participation in the offense resulted from being a victim of sex trafficking, labor trafficking or compelling prostitution. We prepare these applications carefully and discreetly, because survivors deserve a lawyer whose attention stays on them and their future.
