Supervisors to Consider Backing Hazel's Law on Sex Trafficking

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors is expected on Tuesday to consider support for a federal law that would close a loophole in regulation of child sex trafficking and speed up prosecution of defendants.

The Child Protection Act of 2013, authored by Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, would remove a requirement that the alleged trafficker knew the victim was a minor. 

The bill is also known as "Hazel's Law."

Currently, the trafficker's knowledge of the victim's age at the time the crime was committed is a factor in whether he receives a longer or shorter sentence, according to a memo by Supervisors Greg Cox and Dianne Jacob.

The supervisors said the average age that females become prostitutes in the U.S. is between 12 and 14 years old. Most are runaways, former foster youth or homeless, which make them prime targets for traffickers.

Cox and Jacob wrote that prosecution of alleged child sex traffickers is frequently delayed because law enforcement has to spend time looking for evidence they knew their victims' age.

“Hazel's Law” is named after a San Diegan identified as Hazel C., who the supervisors said was abducted by Maurice Lerome Smith, 41, of Oceanside and forced into prostitution.

She escaped and contacted law enforcement, but the prosecution of Smith was delayed while investigators tried to prove he knew her age. The proof was eventually found, and the defendant was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison, the supervisors said.

“In the case of Mr. Smith, had Hazel's Law been in effect at the time of Hazel's abduction, the federal trial to prosecute Mr. Smith on charges of child abduction would have been streamlined to ensure a quicker trial by not having to prove Mr. Smith's knowledge of Hazel's status as a minor at the time of abduction,” Cox and Jacob wrote.

Other local Democratic congress members, Susan Davis and Scott Peters, are co-sponsors of the Vargas bill, which is now before the House Judiciary Committee.

Davis represents Lemon Grove and Peters Coronado.

– City News Service