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The sex trafficking industry is fueled by buyers who pay traffickers to supply victims to meet their demand. Men, women and children from a wide variety of backgrounds are victimized through sex trafficking. Vulnerability factors that make individuals more susceptible to trafficking include low self-esteem, being abused or neglected, poverty, homelessness, being in the foster care system and identifying as LGBT. Children’s emotional and economic dependence on others and undeveloped ability to analyze decisions and understand consequences combined with their high “market value” among buyers make them especially vulnerable to traffickers. A trafficker, or pimp, is anyone who profits by receiving cash or benefits in exchange for the sex act. Traffickers can be family members, friends or “boyfriends.” Buyers are those who purchase the sex act thereby fueling the commercial sex industry by making it profitable.

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The leader of a family-run sex trafficking ring, who beat and forced victims to undergo abortions, was sentenced to 188 months in prison (15 years) at a courthouse in Brooklyn.

The United States Attorney’s Office announced this on Thursday.

Hugo Hernandez-Velazquez was charged with sex trafficking multiple victims by force, fraud, and coercion. He will be deported back to Mexico after his prison term, according to court documents.

“For nearly a decade, the defendant and his family oversaw a vicious sex trafficking campaign wrought with violence, manipulation, coercion, and outright force against women whom they lured into romantic relationships through false promises of love and support,” said one HSI Special Agent.

Read more here.

NORRISTOWN — A Dock Mennonite Academy senior won first prize in Montgomery County’s Overdose Prevention Billboard contest.

Caitlin May was recognized for her efforts participating in this year’s contest hosted in partnership with the county’s family services and drug and alcohol offices. Her artwork was featured during the June 18 Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting.

Established in 2017, the competition aims to cultivate artistic pieces that spotlight available resources to combat overdose prevention, substance addiction and promote healthy lifestyles.

This 2025 competition had more than 40 entries featuring the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s national hotline, which is 1-800-662-HELP (4357), according to Jennifer Gehert, program specialist with the county’s drug and alcohol office. There were 350 votes cast to decide the winner.

May’s artwork will be displayed for a month on 10 different digital billboards across Montgomery County, however, the exact locations are not yet known. May also earned a $200 Amazon gift card as part of the contest winnings, according to a Montgomery County spokesperson.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein did not maintain a “client list,” the Justice Department acknowledged Monday as it said no more files related to the wealthy financier’s sex trafficking investigation would be made public despite promises from Attorney General Pam Bondi that had raised the expectations of conservative influencers and conspiracy theorists.

The acknowledgment that the well-connected Epstein did not have a list of clients to whom underage girls were trafficked represents a public walk-back of a theory that the Trump administration had helped promote, with Bondi suggesting in a Fox News interview earlier this year that such a document was “sitting on my desk” for review.

Even as it released video from inside a New York jail meant to definitively prove that Epstein killed himself, the department also said in a memo that it was refusing to disclose other evidence investigators had collected. Bondi for weeks had suggested more material was going to be revealed — “It’s a new administration and everything is going to come out to the public,” she said at one point — after a first document dump she had hyped angered President Donald Trump’s base by failing to deliver revelations.

That episode, in which far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain, has spurred conservative internet personalities to sharply criticize Bondi.

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The FBI and the Department of Justice under Donald Trump have determined Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide and the fabled ‘client list’ does not exist.

Sentiment was widely shared online that Epstein’s 2019 death was made to look like a suicide, but was actually a murder meant to prevent him from revealing his client list or co-conspirators in the pedophilic sex trafficking conspiracy.

Now, the administration is publishing a memo and plans to release a video showing their findings, backing Epstein’s death as ruled by the medical examiner as a suicide by hanging.

Read more here. 

Sonia Ossorio – National Organization of Women (NOW) – “Zohran Mamdani doesn’t highlight it in his campaign materials, but the 33-year-old mayoral candidate has endorsed a radical policy that would turn New York City into the nation’s first testing site for a fully open, decriminalized sex trade — where men would be free to buy sex without any fear of law enforcement interference and promoting prostitution would be a protected business venture.

It’s clear he hasn’t thought this through. A decriminalized commercial sex market would lead to a range of devastating social consequences. One of the most immediate impacts would be the expansion of street prostitution, gang activity, drug sales and violence.

New York City would become a sex tourism destination attracting men from across the metropolitan area — and even from international locales flocking to the city to buy sex much like Times Square prior to the mid-1990s, only this time, it’s legally protected.

De facto prostitution zones and pop-up brothels would depress real estate values and increase the strain on our overburdened city already grappling with affordability and quality-of-life issues.”

Read Sonia’s Op Ed Here

While it’s not exactly news that G and PG-rated films perform well with audiences, particularly families, news headlines tout that Hollywood has “finally” realized that these films do well at the box office.

The Los Angeles Times recently wrote about this phenomenon, proclaiming that “The PG rating has made a major comeback in Hollywood.” The Wall Street Journal wrote, “PG-rated films that appeal to parents, nostalgic childless adults, and children are on a hot streak.”

We hope that streak continues.

Read more here.