Judiciary Committee approves harsher penalties for human trafficking

Senator Byron Pelton’s bill to enhance the criminal penalties for human trafficking won a 4-1 vote last week from the state Senate Judiciary Committee and now heads to the full Senate for debate.

The measure, Senate Bill 35, makes human trafficking for involuntary servitude and human trafficking for sexual servitude crimes of violence, subject to enhanced sentencing guidelines and increases the statute of limitations for prosecution of these offenses.

This would make servitude a crime of violence and extend the statute of limitations from five years to 20 years, Pelton told the judiciary committee.

Most of those convicted for trafficking serve less than 50 percent of the sentence, he explained.

From 2020 to 2022, 69 cases were filed, with more than 50 victims who were children, but only nine of those cases resulted in human trafficking convictions, he said.

Pelton said in Sterling, local law enforcement has provided education on the issue, and a recent airing of the movie “Sound of Freedom” drew close to 5,000 people. 

The movie is about an anti-trafficking activist and has garnered big box office numbers. But the subject of the film has resigned from the nonprofit child rescue group he founded following allegations of sexual misconduct. The movie has also received criticism for promoting conspiracy theories, including by its star, Jim Cavaziel.

Pelton called Denver District Attorney Beth McCann last year, after finding out she was working on legislation to address the problem.

“I wanted to make sure everyone has the human dignity they have the right to,” he said.

Co-sponsor Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, said the bill is needed to change behavior and send the message that the State of Colorado will not tolerate this abusive behavior. 

Most of those testifying in the Feb. 28 hearing backed the bill, including three district attorneys, including McCann, Brian Mason from the 17th Judicial District (Adams and Broomfield counties) and Travis Sides from the 13th Judicial District in northeastern Colorado.

McCann said she was once assigned an unforgettable case of a 14-year-old girl who ran away from home and wound up being groomed by “pimps.”

That inspired her to sponsor legislation while she was a State lawmaker, and later, to start a human trafficking unit after being elected district attorney. She admitted she is not a fan of mandatory minimum sentences. 

But human trafficking is a different kind of crime, McCann said. It is “calculated, it is planned, it preys on the vulnerable … and human traffickers profit on the backs of people, whether labor or sex,” she said.

“Unless we make it very clear there are significant consequences to this behavior, these folks will continue this behavior … mandatory sentences will serve as protection for survivors of these crimes.”

Jessica Dotter, representing the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council, which also backed the bill, said the measure will reduce victimization of vulnerable populations.

It rightly puts servitude, both adults and minors, in the crime of violence category, and widens the door for survivors to come forward under a lengthier statute of limitations, she said.

It’s not a one community problem; it spans the entire state, Dotter said. “No demographic is immune from this.”

Trafficking is also a problem for immigrants coming to Colorado, she said. The bill will send a message that Colorado takes trafficking seriously and to join with 45 other states that have longer statute of limitations and 39 states with stronger sentences, she concluded.

Kelly Dore is a former Elbert County commissioner and wife of a former state legislator. She’s also a survivor of human trafficking that started when she was just a year old and continued until she was 14.

The person trafficking her was her own father, who sold her for drugs. When he was finally arrested and convicted, he served just a few months for all those years of trafficking.

Dore has become a leading national and international policy expert on human trafficking of children, working around the world to free children sold into sexual servitude.

It’s hard for her to reconcile that Colorado, her home state, ranks below 45 states that have longer statutes of limitations,” she said. “This has not changed since I took my trafficker to court over 30 years ago.”

Since 2014, 268 cases have been filed, but only 54 have resulted in a conviction, she said.

“We must hold them accountable for the crimes against the most vulnerable in our society.” She’s authored a pilot program on mental health for human trafficking survivors, now being replicated around the world, including in the United States.

It’s a challenge to get justice for survivors, Dore explained. Sometimes victims are stuck mentally at the age in which they were first trafficked. “The only difference between a minor and adult victim is 60 seconds on their 18th birthday,” she added. And most victims are conditioned to believe they are not victims. 

Under Colorado law, a survivor has only a few years under the current statute of limitations and that prevents victims from getting justice, Dore said.

Only a few people testified against the measure. Rebekah Layton, a survivor of human trafficking, said these kinds of bills harm survivors, such as children who were trafficked and then as soon as they become adults, were charged with trafficking. She did say, however, she supported extending the statute of limitations, although opposing the bill’s harsher sentence for trafficking.

The Office of the Colorado State Public Defender also opposed the measure as amended. James Karbach, representing the office, said that if “we shift … to make a crime of violence for all human and labor trafficking we undercut properly classifying offense and misusing mandatory minimum [sentences].”

The public defenders’ office is not a fan of mandatory minimums, he said. “We’d like judges to be judges,” Karbach added. He also said there is not an epidemic of probation handed to those convicted of human trafficking.

The bill was rewritten to clarify the sentencing criteria. Fields said she was concerned by the information from the public defender’s office, but that was outweighed by the harrowing testimony of victims and survivors.

A measure to re-enact a 2006 bill that barred local governments from passing ordinances that would prohibit peace officers, local officials, or employees from cooperating with federal officials regarding the immigration status of individuals failed to gain support from the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. That measure was repealed in 2013.

House Bill 1128 was sponsored by Representative Richard Holtorf, R-Akron, who admitted he did not expect the measure to win support from the House’s “kill committee” but that he wanted to generate a conversation on the immigration issue.

Holtorf told the committee during its Feb. 22 hearing the bill promotes public safety in a very difficult time of immigration. 

The bill was watered down by a Holtorf amendment that said sheriffs “may,” instead of “shall,” report a detained individual that the sheriff believes is not lawfully in the United States to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. 

But that wasn’t enough to gain committee support, and HB 1128 died on a party-line 3-8 vote.