Challenges Of Prosecuting Human Traffickers In Oklahoma

Oklahoma City Police nab human traffickers off the streets roughly twice a month. However, some anti-trafficking advocates believe that's as far as it goes, with the accused predator rarely answering for his or her crimes.

News 9’s Amanda Taylor sat down with a Assistant DA Scott Rowland from the Oklahoma County DA's Office to find out why these cases are so difficult to prosecute.

"There really are two different kinds of human trafficking cases, there are the ones that we all fear in our darkest thoughts at night, which is a van pulling up and grabbing some girl off the street and forcing her in prostitution in some remote land," said Oklahoma County Assistant DA Scott Rowland.

This scenario is rare, especially in Oklahoma, according to Rowland. In fact, the most common human trafficking cases that come across his desk involves underage girls involved in prostitution.

"Typically she's being forced or coerced to continue that by her pimp, upon her dependence on her pimp for money, by her dependence on her pimp for drugs," Rowland said.

The typical case involves 15 to 17-year-old girls.

"The way she usually got there is she was a victim of sexually or physical abuse at home or a foster home someplace," Rowland said. "She's a runaway, she's addicted to drugs or other substances, she's dependent on prostitution to make some sort of living for herself, she's dependent on some pimp to facilitate the prostitution and it's this endless cycle."

Once police arrest the trafficker and charges are filed, the case sometimes stalls because of the victim.

"When it comes time to testify against they're exploiter, when it comes time to testify and participate in the prosecution, they won't do it," he said. "They won't cooperate, many times we can't even find them, more often than not, when the case comes to court, they are back with their exploiter."

Anti-trafficking advocate Brian Bates monitors human trafficking cases in the metro and doesn't think policing it is the problem.

"The problem is we drop the ball when it comes to the prosecution, we'd rather get the conviction and not worry about the punishment," said Bates.

He showed News 9 one trafficking case after another where even if the accused pleaded guilty, many of them got off with fines, probation or convictions to lesser crimes.

"These people are let go back out on our streets and within months they're committing much more serious and much more heinous crimes," he said.

Like Joshua Hudson, who was charged with human trafficking in 2013, but convicted on a lesser charge of computer crimes. In 2015, he led officers on a high-speed chase and then a nearly 8-hour manhunt in Seminole County. He was later convicted of shooting with intent to kill an officer in that case.

6/8/15 Related Story: OKC Man, Teen Girl Arrested After Seminole County Manhunt

"Give it to a jury see what the jury decides if the jury doesn't think there's enough there, then they won't convict him, if the jury does think there's enough with or without her testimony then they'll convict him," Bates said.

If they don't have a human trafficking victim to testify, prosecutors sometimes have no choice but to allow the accused to plead to a lesser charge that they can prove.

"Even if this maggot walks out of the courtroom or even if this dirt bag pleads to some lesser crime and goes to prison, I know how it ends, he goes back to the business and she ends up dead or in jail," Rowland said.

Rowland also adds that the issue ultimately is not criminal, but social.

"First thing you've got to do is stop them from being abused at home or in foster homes, the next thing you've got to do is to make sure when they run away that they are taken in, cared for and not allowed to ruin their own lives," he said.