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Human Trafficking in Madison: A Target For Law Enforcement

Human trafficking, specifically the trafficking of children, is a crime that has been getting more and more attention in the media. This means law enforcement agencies are spending more time investigating these cases, and prosecutors are bringing more charges against human traffickers.

What Is Human Trafficking?

Under Wisconsin law, human trafficking is defined as recruiting, enticing, providing or transporting an individual without his or her consent for the purposes of labor or a commercial sex act, and doing so by employing any one from a long list of methods, including:
  • Causing bodily harm
  • Causing financial harm
  • Destroying a passport
  • Extortion
  • Controlling a person’s access to an addictive controlled substance
It is not only the person who allegedly does the trafficking who can be charged with human trafficking; anyone who benefits in any way from human trafficking can also be charged with it if they knew they were benefitting from human trafficking.

Penalties For Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a very serious charge. It is a felony, and carries a potential sentence of 25 years. Trafficking a child carries even more severe penalties: a potential 40-year sentence.
Furthermore, human trafficking is often charged along with a variety of other crimes, including pimping and pandering, kidnapping, false imprisonment, various forms of battery, and various drug charges. Those additional charges add even greater potential punishment.
Prosecuting and defending charges of human trafficking is very complicated. The other criminal charges that often accompany a human trafficking charge add even greater complexity. The attorneys at Nicholson Goetz & Otis, S.C., have extensive experience dealing with human trafficking charges, both defending them and prosecuting them. As a result, we are extremely familiar with all aspects of the human trafficking statute, the methods law enforcement uses to detect, investigate, and charge human trafficking, and the legal defenses available to those charged.

If you have been charged with human trafficking — if you are even suspected of or are being investigated for human trafficking — contact the law firm with in-depth experience handling these complex charges, the attorneys at Nicholson Goetz & Otis, S.C. Call 608-471-5003 or send us an email.