Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. 

“Crimes of this nature — most especially when it comes to our kids — should be punishable by the full extent of the law,” Evers said in a statement. “With this bill, we are helping ensure that we’re protecting some of our most vulnerable youth and holding predators accountable, most especially when they prey on our kids.”

The bill includes increases to the maximum amounts of prison time a person can receive for human and child trafficking crimes, and it allows more time for prosecution of human trafficking crimes. 

Human trafficking involves using force, fraud or coercion for labor, services or a commercial sex act. Trafficking of a child can involve a knowing attempt to recruit a child for commercial sex acts. Wisconsin trafficking law also bans benefiting from trafficking or knowingly receiving compensation from the earnings of debt bondage, a prostitute or a commercial sex act. 

Last month, the Wisconsin Examiner reported on lawmakers’ reasons for supporting the bill, such as preventing human traffickers from doing further harm. Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) cited cases that appeared to have taken place in other states in which people convicted of sex trafficking received between six and eight years in prison. 

The Examiner reported on criminal justice advocacy groups and attorneys’ criticisms of the mandatory minimums, including a concern from attorneys that judges would sentence people who are trafficking victims themselves to the mandatory minimum punishment without being able to consider whether the person deserved a lighter sentence because their trafficking crime was influenced by their trafficker. The bill didn’t contain an exception to the mandatory minimum for that type of situation. While Wisconsin law allows a defense in court for people who committed a crime as a “direct result” of trafficking, that didn’t allay critics’ concerns.

The anti-sex trafficking organization Shared Hope International gave Wisconsin law failing grades on multiple categories relevant to survivors of child sex trafficking: “protection from unjust criminalization,” “legal relief” and “survivor-centered supports.” The analysis was based on laws enacted as of July 1. 

Then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York City.  (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A Manhattan federal judge granted an order Tuesday to unseal grand jury records in the case of Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking minors among other offenses in 2021.

Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote in a 24-page order that unsealing the documents fell within the scope of a new law passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. The law compels the U.S. Department of Justice to release nearly all investigative files in the government’s case against Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked the court to release the records after Congress overwhelmingly passed the legislation last month requiring disclosure of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or (co-conspirator Ghislaine) Maxwell.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi must release the material by Dec. 19 in accordance with the law, which lawmakers dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

Law covers grand jury material

Engelmayer described the act’s language as “strikingly broad” and wrote Congress was “undeniably aware” that grand jury materials in Maxwell’s case were in possession of the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.

“Its decision not to exclude grand jury materials despite knowledge as to their existence, while expressly excluding other categories of materials (such as classified information), indicates that the Act covers grand jury materials,” Engelmayer wrote.

The order comes days after a Florida federal judge reached a similar conclusion Friday and ordered the unsealing of federal grand jury materials related to the government’s investigation of Epstein from 2005 to 2007.

Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge for soliciting a minor for prostitution but avoided a federal probe when then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta cut a deal with state prosecutors. Acosta was later appointed secretary of Labor during Trump’s first administration.

Florida interview

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence. The Trump administration recently transferred the sex offender to a minimum security prison shortly after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed her in a Tallahassee, Florida, facility as pressure to release the Epstein files ramped up in Congress and among Trump’s base.

According to transcripts, Maxwell told Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein but denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes. The president has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because Epstein had poached young female staffers from the club.

Maxwell was convicted in December 2021, after a one-month jury trial, of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor.

The Justice Department maintains Epstein had over 1,000 victims.