Utilizing Eavesdropping Warrants to Successfully Investigate and Prosecute Sex Traffickers

Criminal justice professionals face a variety of challenges when investigating and prosecuting human trafficking cases. One of the most difficult of these challenges to overcome is building cases that allow prosecutors to hold offenders accountable when victims are justifiably too scared or traumatized to participate in an investigation and prosecution. Law enforcement officers should therefore strive to build cases that stand on their own, with or without victim testimony.

Whether a victim testifies or not, live and surreptitious interception of offender communications is a way for officers to continue to work a case and collect evidence to build a strong prosecution. When victims do testify, evidence obtained from a wiretap can be crucial to support their credibility before a jury, and in the event that a prosecutor is presenting a case without a participating victim, such evidence may be able to fill in the gaps to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

A wiretap may produce key evidence of a target’s role in an organized trafficking scheme or of the guilt of an actor working alone. They may provide crucial out-of-court statements that can help prosecutors convict a trafficker. Wiretaps may also identify other crimes the trafficker is committing, enabling prosecutors to hold offenders accountable for the full range of their criminal conduct or allowing alternative charges when trafficking offenses are unable to be pursued without victim testimony. This article provides law enforcement officers and prosecutors with an introductory and practical overview of obtaining eavesdropping warrants and utilizing the resulting evidence.

This document was produced by AEquitas under Grant No. 15POVC-21-GK-03263-HT, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this document are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.