In March, the Colorado Court of Appeals acquitted Dallas Cardenas of a trafficking-in-children conviction related to his role in facilitating the sale of a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2010.
A jury in 2011 found Cardenas guilty of the charge for a “criminal business” that collapsed after a police sting. Court records say he posted Internet ads peddling the teen for sex, set a price for her services, told her how to talk to clients and ferried her to several “dates.”
Last spring, however, the appellate court said Cardenas’ conviction was invalid because of wording in the state’s trafficking-in-children statute. The court said that because Cardenas, now 22, had not “transferred physical or legal custody of the child to another person permanently or for a defined period in exchange for money or other consideration,” he had not committed the crime.
The ruling, in essence, made it so that in order for prosecutors to prove that a suspect broke the law, they needed to show that he literally owned a child-victim and transferred that ownership. While the decision didn’t affect Cardenas’ prison sentence — he was convicted of other counts — it outraged law enforcement and activists who called for better laws and a better understanding of trafficking.
The legislature heeded their calls.
On July 1, new statutes went into effect in Colorado aligning the state’s trafficking laws with federal ones in what many hope will be a monumental shift in the way offenders in the Centennial State are prosecuted.
For years, activist groups said Colorado had among the worst trafficking laws in the nation. Law enforcement officers often have complained that statutes were difficult to interpret and set a high burden of proof. Now, they hope the revised laws will augment the tools available to battle the problem and that offenses that before fell under the category of pimping, pandering or prostitution can now be considered trafficking felonies.
“The Dallas Cardenas case is a perfect example of why thoughtful legislation is important,” said Amanda Finger, executive director of the Denver-based Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking. “I think that this a really great start. I think that Colorado does have really good, comprehensive laws in place now.”
Colorado is a breeding ground for human trafficking because of the major interstates crisscrossing it. Federal and local authorities have made arrests in trafficking operations in Denver and Colorado Springs, as well as in smaller towns, including some on the Western Slope.
“There’s no way to know how many trafficking cases there have been because our statutes have been so miserable,” Finger said, adding that she hopes the new laws will make reporting and data collection easier.
Between 2006 — when the state’s first statutes were enacted — and the end of last year, there were 441 confirmed or suspected cases of sex trafficking in Colorado, according to the state attorney general’s office. Activists such as Finger, however, say that number is an outlandishly low estimate stemming from the former statutes and a lack of understanding about trafficking.
Human trafficking is broken into two main subsets: sex and labor. Both types have been reported in Colorado, and both encompass what activists call “modern-day slavery. ” They are broadly defined as anyone kept against their will through force, fraud or coercion, whether physical or emotional.
“We definitely needed to update our laws,” said John Suthers, Colorado’s attorney general, whose office prosecuted the Cardenas case. “I think that human trafficking, as an issue in Colorado, came onto the legislative radar screen and our office’s radar screen in 2005. Up to that time, we had prostitution laws and pimping laws, but we felt we needed to make some legislative moves to address human trafficking.”
In hindsight, Suthers said, those early laws weren’t enough.
“We feel we are now, legislatively, in pretty good shape to deal with the cases going forward,” he said.
The new law includes revisions to Colorado’s existing statutes, such as the child sex-trafficking laws on which Cardenas — whose original conviction was touted as the first successful prosecution under Colorado’s human-trafficking laws — won an appeal.
Sex trafficking of a minor is now a sex offense against a child, heightening potential penalties. Also, the new law says that a minor cannot consent to being prostituted. Additionally, defendants now cannot argue that they did not know the age of the person they are accused of trafficking.
The statute is being used for the first time in Jefferson County, where Christopher Sullivan — known for a late-July crime spree through the Lookout Mountain area that included several carjackings — is facing child sex-trafficking charges.
Sullivan, 37, allegedly convinced a 17-year-old New Mexico girl to travel with him to Colorado this summer, helping sell her sexual services to men at a Lakewood motel, according to court records.
State Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver, who sponsored the revised statutes, said all of the pieces fell into place during this year’s legislative session, setting the ground for the bill’s bipartisan passage.
“I am just thrilled that the legislation passed. I am really pleased we have an active group in Colorado,” she said. “We still have a lot of work to do. We really need to work on getting resources and convincing police departments and district attorneys that this needs to be a priority.”
Colorado’s new law is part of a national trend of revised trafficking statutes, according to Megan Fowler of the Washington, D.C.-based national anti-trafficking Polaris Project. In 2013, 39 states passed new legislation to battle the issue.
Last year, the project ranked Colorado as among states with the worst trafficking legislation. Fowler said Colorado’s ranking should move up this year, thanks to the new law.
“Overall, it is an important first step for states to pass laws and establish a basic legal framework to combat human trafficking,” Fowler said. “But states must also take steps to implement the laws, by authorizing proper funding, training and more.”
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jesseapaul
Highlights of legislation
Child sex trafficking is now a sex offense against a child
A minor can never consent to being prostituted
Suspects cannot argue they didn’t know the age of a victim
A new human-trafficking council has been created
Those convicted are now ordered to pay restitution to their victims
