Jonathan Young
Stillwater Gazette
Not long ago, Washington County Attorney Pete Orput didn’t think sex trafficking was an issue in Washington County.
“If you’d asked me six months ago, I’d have said, ‘Yeah, it’s a big problem, but not out here,’” Orput said.
That’s not his answer anymore.
Now he says the problem is more widespread than he ever guessed. That’s why his office is launching an initiative to combat sex trafficking in the county.
The initiative will include law enforcement partnerships, public education and a new prosecutor’s position that will focus on sex trafficking cases.
Assistant Washington County Attorney Imran Ali has been appointed as the “major crimes prosecutor,” a position approved by the County Board Oct. 13. Although he will prosecute other serious crimes, such as homicide, sophisticated insurance fraud and organized retail crime, he will focus on sex trafficking crimes as part of the new initiative.
“We started seeing more and more of those cases come up in Washington County, and we realized we have a problem — it’s not just confined to Minneapolis, St. Paul,” Ali said. “It’s not only a metro problem. It’s a statewide and nationwide problem as well. So what our office is going to be doing with the major crimes component is primarily focus on these sex trafficking cases.”
Ali said the rise of the Internet and social media have made sex trafficking less difficult than in the past and enabled it to travel more easily beyond urban centers.
Determining the precise extent of the problem is difficult. A September 2014 report to the state Legislature by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety notes, “Human trafficking, by its very nature, is a hidden crime whose victims often go unidentified, misidentified or undiscovered.” The report is conducted biennially, as required by state statute.
According to the 2014 report, a survey of service providers in the state found that at the time of the survey, respondents were serving five adult males, 79 adult females, 11 boys and 80 girls who were victims of sex trafficking. In 2013, service providers reported assisting 35 males, 202 adult females, 35 boys and 119 girls who were victims. The service providers reported working with victims subjected to crimes including forced prostitution, forced pornography and forced stripping.
According to the department of public safety report, in 2013 there were 472 human trafficking-related convictions in the state. The greatest number (347 convictions) fell into the category of “other prostitution charges,” followed by “solicitation, inducement and promotion of prostitution; sex trafficking” (63 convictions), and “solicitation of a child” (32 convictions).
However, the report notes: “These numbers … do not reflect the extent of trafficking and trafficking-related crime in Minnesota. Most of the individuals involved in human trafficking and related offenses are never arrested, charged or convicted; those who do interact with the legal system are often arrested, charged or convicted of different nontrafficking offenses.”
Washington County isn’t immune to the problem. The county attorney’s office isn’t the only agency to say so.
“Have we seen it? Have we been involved in investigations in the past? Absolutely,” Washington County Sheriff Bill Hutton said. “It is happening more, and our tools to investigate are getting better as well. … It crosses all boundaries and socio-economic classes.”
Recently, Stillwater police were involved in a high-profile case involving a junior high student and a suspect in Washington state who had contact with her over the Internet.
Stillwater Police Chief John Gannaway said such cases aren’t common in Stillwater, but it does happen, and it’s best to be proactive.
“It’s a serious crime,” he said. “It’s a stain on society, and it needs to be dealt with.”
The Forest Lake area also has been touched by alleged trafficking, after a St. Paul man was charged Nov. 23 for his alleged role in prostituting a 17-year-old Forest Lake girl.
“We’ll be working with law enforcement and making sure all of us are trained in this area,” Ali said.
The various agencies in the county will also pool resources when needed to investigate a case.
“There’s strength in numbers,” Hutton said. “When any agency has an issue, we can all come together.”
In addition to providing training for law enforcement, the initiative aims to foster cooperation among law enforcement and existing resources for victims.
“We can’t arrest our way out of this,” Hutton said. “We have to make sure we team up with the right people, and that means community services. … We are making the connections with all those resource groups, so as we are doing these investigations we can make sure that the victims are … at least provided with the opportunity to be given the resources that they need.”
The initiative also seeks to educate the community at large. Ali said community members need to know potential signs of sex trafficking and what to do if they suspect it’s happening near them or happening to a family member.
“We’ll be working on that in 2016,” Ali said.
But he added that if your gut tells you something’s wrong, contact law enforcement.
“One thing everybody can do is just be aware,” he said.
Orput said parents should also be aware of what their children are doing on the Internet.
“Parents, we need to be more involved in our teenagers’ lives,” he said. “Even when they resist it and don’t like it, it’s still part of our obligation.”