There’s always a New Jersey angle, Save Jerseyans.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is in deep sh*t after being accused of sex trafficking and forced labor, and that’s in part because he’s being prosecuted under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-386) spearheaded by none other than Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) of NJ-04.
Under Smith’s law, Diddy faces anywhere from 15 years in prison to life for his alleged crimes.
“My Trafficking Victims Protection Act created a new whole-of-government domestic and international strategy to combat sex and labor trafficking and established numerous new programs to protect victims, prosecute traffickers, and to the extent possible, prevent it in the first place,” said Smith, reacting to the indictment. “The legislation had its naysayers at the time, but the law has proven critical in locking up criminals that abuse and traffic in women and children. Thousands of human traffickers have been and continue to be prosecuted and jailed pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, including several charges brought against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, all of the charges brought against Jeffrey Epstein, and the infamous convictions involving the ‘Smallville’ actress Allison Mack.”
The unsealed indictment alleges that Combs “knowingly recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained, advertised, maintained, patronized, and solicited by any means a person, knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact that means of force, threats of force, fraud, and coercion, as described in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1591(e)(2), and any combination of such means, would be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act” (paragraph 16).
Smith believes his landmark legislation revolutionized the prosecution of crimes of the kind which Combs is accused of committing.
“One of the reforms established by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act included treating as a victim—and not a perpetrator of a crime—anyone exploited by a commercial sex act who had not attained the age of 18 and anyone older where there was an element of force, fraud or coercion,” Smith added. “Additionally, my law radically reformed the U.S. criminal code to authorize asset confiscation and jail sentences of up to life imprisonment.”
Combs is also facing allegations of sexual abuse in at least one civil lawsuit brought by an alleged victim in New York.
