On October 5th, Willie James Johnson, from Catasauqua, Pennsylvania was arrested following a human trafficking investigation. Court records show that Johnson was charged with two counts of trafficking individuals, one count of involuntary servitude, one count of possession with intent to deliver, and one count of criminal use of communication facility. Johnson is currently being held in York County Prison without bail.
According to the Northern York County Regional Police Department, informants, including one victim who was sixteen, educated police about how Johnson used coercive tactics to manipulate his victims into selling sex in order to make him a profit. The informants explained that Johnson would take advantage of his victim’s drug addictions in order to coerce them into selling sex in exchange for heroin, causing the victims to become indebted to him. Other victims were introduced to heroin only after meeting Johnson, but then relied on him to help maintain their new addiction that Johnson helped to create. Another victim was loaned money by Johnson, and forced to sell sex to pay him back. Investigators have been watching Johnson’s suspicious behavior of renting motel rooms and leaving with women since 2014.
Regarding this arrest, Michelle Cooper, Special Victim Case Manager with YWCA York County, Pennsylvania is, “incredibly proud of the collaboration between the YWCA York, the York County Human Trafficking Task Force, and Northern York County Regional Police Department over the past several months as they have investigated this case.” Ms. Cooper found that many of her clients were, “familiar with Willie James and have described his abhorrent methods of recruiting girls for commercial sex, including forcibly injecting them with heroin in order to develop or maintain an addiction.” Ms. Cooper recognizes the importance key figures had in this investigation, such as Detective Baker’s ability in, “cultivating a rapport with survivors willing to speak out against Willie James Johnson,” and showing that law enforcement understands the often-complex dynamics of human trafficking, as well as, “the impact of victimization on trafficking survivors.”
Unfortunately, Johnson’s coercive scheme of making victims dependent on him is not uncommon. Creating or maintaining drug addictions along with imposing debts to trap victims are tactics often imposed by traffickers to ensure easier control over their victims. These tactics can be behind many of the collateral consequences of trafficking such as drug use, physical violence, and sexual abuse.
The Institute is pleased to see York County Police focusing their efforts on criminalizing traffickers, instead of their victims. While these investigations can often take a great amount of time and resources to conduct, the more time that passes without police intervention means more and more people can be victimized by these types of traffickers. We can only speculate the amount of people the defendant exploited from 2014 to 2017. That is why CSE encourages third parties, such as motel and hotel businesses to partner with law enforcement in order to watch for signs of human trafficking in order to help save lives and prevent more victimization.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.