While the new law purports to go after sex traffickers โ people who coerce others, including children โ into selling sex, in fact their reach is much broader than that. The bill that was signed into law was the House of Representatives version, H.
The new law, codified at 18 U. That provision is not so different from the Travel Act, which already made it a federal sex offense to facilitate prostitution across state lines. The website Backpage. Backpage and other websites like it clearly could have charged under the new law, too. In other words, website operators openly touting prostitution have always been exposed to prosecution under the federal law.
A violation of this first provision of FOSTA carries a ten-year maximum penalty as well as various financial sanctions. If the conduct involves promoting five or more prostitutes, FOSTA creates a penalty of up to twenty-five years in prison.
In practice, the twenty-five year penalty created by FOSTA could theoretically be used to punish anyone involved in a huge number of websites that relate in any way to prostitution. It remains to be seen how FOSTA will be enforced by the government and whether it will survive scrutiny in the courts. Federal prostitution prosecutions are, in fact, high profile but relatively rare. The new law was subjected to withering criticism from a broad coalition of groups as it made its way through Congress.
If you are operating a website that could be subject to FOSTA, please contact our office for a consultation. Please call us for further information.
