As reported by Amanda Milkovits in the March 24, 2015 edition of the Providence Journal, a Massachusetts man has been charged with sex trafficking of a minor and possession of drugs. The victim was a teenage girl from Massachusetts. The man found the teenager online and the two became friends. She later run away and met the man. He then advertised her for sex using a website called Backpage.com. Undercover Rhode Island State Police arranged a meeting through the website and later arrested the man. At the time of his arrest, police also found crack cocaine in the motel room.
Pursuant to Rhode Island General Laws 11-67-6, sexual trafficking of a minor is defined as any person who:
(1) Recruits, employs, entices, solicits, isolates, harbors, transports, provides, persuades, obtains, or maintains, or so attempts, any minor for the purposes of commercial sex acts; or
(2) Sells or purchases a minor for the purposes of commercial sex acts; or
(3) Benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which has engaged in an act described in subdivision (1) or (2); or
(c) Every person who shall commit sex trafficking of a minor.
(1) "Commercial sex act" means any sex act or sexually explicit performance on account of which anything of value is given, promised to, or received, directly or indirectly, by any person.
(2) "Minor" refers to any natural person under eighteen (18) years of age.
(3) "Person" includes an individual, corporation, partnership, association, a government body, a municipal corporation, or any other legal entity.
(4) "Sex act" means sexual intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, anal intercourse, and digital intrusion or intrusion by any object into the genital opening or anal opening of another person's body or the stimulation by hand of another's genitals for the purposes of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of either person.
(5) "Sexually-explicit performance" means an act or show, intended to arouse, satisfy the sexual desires of, or appeal to the prurient interests of patrons or viewers, whether public or private, live, photographed, recorded, or videotaped.
The penalties if convicted include not more than forty (40) years imprisonment or a fine of up to forty thousand dollars ($40,000), or both.