Crime Scene

Three Rockland legislators have formed a chorus to urge the New York State Legislature and governor to adopt more stringent laws governing human trafficking. The amended laws being considered in Albany would focus on protecting people – in many cases women and children – from labor and sexual servitude.

Many immigrants are smuggled into the United States and pay off their debts through prostitution and by working in factories and as domestics. In all cases, human trafficking involves people being forced into some type of servitude.

There have been several arrests in Rockland – specifically in Spring Valley – during which women were supposedly paying off their debt when brought into the United States by working in prostitution. In several cases, Spring Valley police said, the women were brough into the county from New York and New Jersey. Police across Rockland also have dealt with women who work in massage parlors without a license and deal in prostitution.

Banding together to urge passage of a proposed Assembly bill were Legislature Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, Connie Coker, D-South Nyack, and Patrick Withers, D-Suffern. The proposal would make trafficking a C-felony, assuring a prison sentence for those who force people into bondage.

Also involved in the developing a strong law is Rockland District Attorney Michael Bongiorno, as president of the New York State District Attorney’s Association. Bongiorno said negotiations on writing stricter laws are continuing between the association and staffers with the Assembly and Senate.

Bongiorno said the hope is to get some legislation adopted and sent to Gov. Elliot Spitzer before the Assembly and Senate end their session in July.