By My Two Cents
This is in response to Did Judge Garaufis Change the Legal Definition of ‘Commercial Sex’ By His Jury Instruction in US v. Raniere?
I think sex trafficking totally makes sense in this case and I wish people would stop trying to downplay it just because it doesn’t seem as strictly commercial as what society has generally understood sex trafficking to be.
If a “master” tells his “slave” to order “their slave” to perform a “seduction assignment,” how is this anything but an organized effort where both of the so-called masters enjoy a kind of benefit from the sexual exploitation of the lowest level slave?
Keith Raniere ordered his slave Allison Mack to order her slave Nicole to seduce him.
It’s a good thing that legal definitions are always expanding to include new developments in society and I don’t believe the prosecution was wrong in applying this definition to these acts.
It absolutely should be considered sex trafficking if some gross dude thinks he can blackmail women into blackmailing other women into sex acts.
Maybe if everyone had just been honest with each other, Nicole could have made an informed choice and been spared the trauma of a sexual assault. It’s also incredibly wrong to minimize what happened to Nicole just because it was a woman attacker and oral sex.
These DOS women are always complaining that females are held to a different standard than men. I generally disagree with them and see this as an excellent case in point (Allison Mack was charged for her involvement) except for the fact that Camila was not charged with sexual assault.
In defense of Camila, however, I believe it’s important to remember that Keith controlled her life and the lives of her family members since she was a teen. Obviously, the prosecution was well aware of this and Camila was not held responsible for her role in the assault.
That’s also their prerogative. They can present the facts and request judgment in whatever way they believe makes the most sense. The defense could have argued that Camila was the one who performed the assault, not Keith. Except that the prosecution didn’t lay a charge of sexual assault. They more appropriately laid a charge of sex trafficking and I think it deserves to stay.
