Under California PC 266, enticing a minor into prostitution is a crime that involves luring a person under 18 years old to participate in prostitution acts. You can also face charges if you entice a child to engage in sexual relations with someone else. A PC 266 violation can attract a felony or a misdemeanor charge, depending on the case circumstances.

Before your conviction for this crime, the prosecution team must establish that you induced someone else into prostitution. The victim must have been under 18 years old during the commission of the crime. A guilty verdict for this crime could result in severe legal penalties.

Even after you have served your jail or prison sentence, the conviction remains on your record, affecting other aspects of your life. You need top-notch legal guidance to fight a charge of enticing a minor into prostitution.

An Overview of CPC  266

Enticing a minor to prostitution involves luring the child to enter a brothel or have sexual relations with someone else. It is unlawful to lure, convince, or entice a child to participate in prostitution acts.

Prostitution is the exchange of sexual favors for money or another valuable item. You could be found liable for enticing a minor to prostitution if the prosecution team can establish that the victim of your acts is a minor. California law defines a minor as a person below 18 years old who cannot consent to sexual acts.

California PC 266 criminalizes the following acts:

  • Persuading or enticing a minor to participate in prostitution. If you persuade a child to engage in prostitution or use another person to do so, you can be arrested for this offense.
  • Enticing a child to work in a brothel is a serious offense. A brothel is a place where individuals engage in prostitution. If you cause a child to enter or work in such a place, you may be found liable for enticing a child to prostitution.
  • Aiding a child to engage in prostitution. If you facilitate a minor to participate in prostitution by supporting their acts or transporting them to the location of prostitution, you could be charged with violating this statute.
  • Bringing a person to have sex with an underage individual. You can face charges for enticing a minor to prostitution if you fraudulently convince a child to have sexual relations with someone else.

Legal Penalties Against CPC 266 Charges

The district attorney can file felony or misdemeanor charges against you if you violate this statute. The prosecutor will consider these  factors when determining how to charge your offense:

  • The age of the child. You may face a felony charge if you are charged with enticing a person under fourteen years into prostitution.
  • Your criminal record. When you have previous convictions for this offense or another sex crime, you could face felony charges.
  • Injuries to a child. If a child suffers severe injury or death while engaging in sexual acts that you solicited them to engage in, you could face charges for a felony under PC 266.

As a misdemeanor, luring a child into prostitution is punished by a maximum of 12 months in jail or a $2,000 fine. For a felony PC 266, you could be punished with a sentence of 16 years to 2 or 3 years in prison. The court can also impose fines that do not exceed $2,000. In addition to incarceration and fines, the court will order you to register as a sex offender.

Registration as a Sex Offender for Violating CPC 266

The most daunting consequence for individuals facing charges for luring a child to prostitution is the requirement to enter their name in the sex offender registry. Mandatory registration as a sex offender is part of the sentence for most sex crimes, including PC 266. Under PC 290, registering as a sex offender requires you to present your identification information and details of your address or workplace to the law enforcement department.

Additionally, you must renew this status each year and update your information when you change residency or employment. Luring a child into prostitution is a tier 1 sex offense. Therefore, you must renew your ten-year status when convicted under PC 266. Like a conviction, a sex offender registry in California is accessible to the public. This means that it is accessible to everyone.

The sex offender status can significantly impact your personal and professional life. You may have difficulty obtaining employment or holding relationships with other people. If you fail to meet the sex offender registration requirement, you can face an arrest that will result in an arrest, prosecution, and punishment.

Will I Spend Time in Jail or Prison if I am Convicted under PC 266?

Luring a child to engage in prostitution is a severe offense that can attract a misdemeanor or felony charge. You may not evade incarceration when you are found guilty of the crime. However, your prison or jail time may be reduced if you are sentenced to probation.

In California, probation is a substitute for incarceration. It allows defendants to spend a portion of the sentence on community service. You could be sent to summary probation for your misdemeanor and formal probation for your felony conviction.

Probation will not be available for all individuals facing PC 266 charges. Therefore, your lawyer must negotiate probation with the prosecutor. Felony probation will last a maximum of five years, while summary probation could last between one and three years.

A judge may attach the following requirements to your probation sentence:

  • Avoid engaging in criminal acts. If the judge sends you to probation for enticing a minor into prostitution, you must not commit other crimes during probation.
  • Mandatory reporting. You should report your probation progress to a judge for a misdemeanor or to your probation officer when you serve felony probation.
  • No-contact order. The judge could order you to avoid all forms of contact with the alleged victims of the crimes while on probation. This will include phone calls, physical contact, and other forms of electronic communication.

The Lasting Consequences of your PC 266 Conviction

If you face conviction for encouraging a minor to enter into prostitution, the penalties you face extend beyond jail time, fines, and probation. The offense will remain on the criminal record long after being released, affecting your personal and professional life. Your conviction under Penal Code 266 will have the following long-term effects:

Immigration Consequences

There will be an added possibility of losing your immigration status when you face CPC 266 charges as an immigrant in the United States. A conviction could impact your immigration status if you face charges for violating PC 266 as an immigrant. A conviction for luring a minor into prostitution carries severe consequences, such as deportation and inadmissibility.

Deportation means that you could be removed from the country forcefully. The removal proceedings by ICE begin immediately after the conviction. Inadmissibility, however, means you cannot be allowed back if you leave the country.

Loss of Gun Rights

California law allows all individuals over 18 to own, purchase, or use a firearm legally. You may lose your gun rights when you are convicted of enticing a minor to prostitution. This means the judge will mandate that you surrender all firearms to the law enforcement department. A firearm ban will last ten years to a lifetime if you face a felony conviction under PC 266.

Difficulty Obtaining Employment

Most employers in California cannot offer you a job opportunity without performing background checks on you. Your conviction under POC 266 will always show up in your history. A potential employer can use the conviction to discriminate against you and deny you employment, which can be a big blow to your livelihood. If you are trained to work with children, you may never have a chance to return to the field.

Loss of your Professional License

Some professionals, like nurses, physicians, lawyers, and psychologists, need a license to practice in California. Being arrested and found liable for luring a minor into prostitution as a licensed professional can have a disastrous effect on your career.

Most professional licensing boards require self-reporting, meaning you should report your arrests and convictions to the board. However, the relevant authorities will notify your licensing board even when you do not report the conviction.

Upon learning of your conviction, the board will investigate and impose severe discipline on your license. This is especially true in cases where you work with children and are convicted of this offense. The board can suspend or revoke your license only in these cases.

Restriction to Frequent Some Areas

A violation of PC 266 is a serious offense against minors. When you are found liable for this crime, you can be viewed as a threat to the security of other kids in society. As a result, your movement is restricted. For instance, you might not be allowed to be close to a school or a park.

Difficulty Finding a Home to Rent

Many landlords are vigilant when offering tenancy to an individual in California. Therefore, they may check your history before allowing you to live in their building. Having a record of enticing a child into prostitution can result in the denial of your application to rent. This is due to the fear that you would commit a similar crime to children in the neighborhood.

Social Stigma

Children are a vulnerable group in society. Therefore, acts that put these individuals in danger are frowned upon by society. People in your area will likely learn about your conviction, especially when society knows the alleged victim. Being discriminated against in society can impact your relationships and life.

Legal Defense Against Penal Code

You should not take your charges under PC 266 lightly. This is because a conviction for the crime will deprive you of your freedom and impact your professional and personal lives. You can explore the following legal defenses:

Dispute the Alleged Victim’s Age

The first factor that the prosecution team must establish to prove your guilt for violating PC 266 is that you solicited a person under eighteen years old to engage in sexual intercourse. Therefore, you will not be liable for this offense unless it is clear that the victim is a minor.

If you can prove that the person you solicited was not a child, you can beat your charges. You could do this by claiming that the person looked older or that they presented an identification card, which convinced you that the person was an adult at the time of the act.

However, prostitution solicitation is a misdemeanor, which means you will face lesser penalties. You can avoid incarceration by negotiating probation sentences if you have no criminal history or similar prior convictions.

False Allegations

Enticing a minor to prostitution is a severe offense. Unfortunately, many allegations of sex crimes involving minors are a result of false allegations. You may be falsely accused of the offense by an angry person seeking revenge against you or by an actual perpetrator attempting to shift the blame onto you.

You will need the help of a reliable criminal lawyer to uncover the false allegations to avoid a conviction.

Insufficient Evidence

When charged under PC 266, the prosecuting attorney must prove the elements of your crime. You can provide tangible evidence, illustrative evidence, and witness testimony to support your claims. By working with an experienced defense lawyer, you may refute the prosecutor's evidence and build a compelling case against them. This could persuade the court to reduce the severity of your punishment or increase your chances of being found not guilty.

Mistaken Identification

When authorities charge you under PC 266, the alleged victim's testimony may serve as a critical piece of evidence in your case. Unfortunately, the child may mistakenly identify you as the individual who solicited them to take part in the prostitution acts. This could result from your having similar physical characteristics as the perpetrator or because the offense occurred during the night, and the child cannot remember what they saw.

Mistaken identification could result in charges for an act you did not know about. You can use the defense of mistaken identification to show your innocence. Your attorney can provide a credible alibi or a crucial witness to attest to your innocence.

Additionally, you can provide evidence to prove that you were not in the vicinity of the brothel or location where the child was subjected to carnal abuse. This evidence could include CCTV footage, text messages, or emails to show that you did not commit the alleged offense.

Entrapment

Most arrests for crimes involving prostitution and other sex offenses against children occur after undercover or sting operations. In these operations, police officers can pose as children, which allows them to catch a defendant in the act.

With the pressure to hold someone accountable for a crime, like enticing a child to prostitution, which is highly frowned upon by society, the undercover officers could push you to act out of character. You could use entrapment to defend your case if you prove that an officer instigated you to do something out of your character.

What is the Difference Between Pimping and Enticing a Minor to Prostitution?

There are different types of sex offenses with which you could be charged if you run the prostitution business. Enticing a minor to prostitution involves enticing the child to enter a brothel or engage in sexual intercourse with someone else.

On the other hand, pimping involves benefiting from the proceeds of another person's prostitution acts. The district attorney can charge you with pimping if you take money in exchange for providing protection services for prostitutes or if you manage a brothel.

PC 266 and PC 266h are different offenses. But you can face a charge for both. This is if you entice a child to enter a brothel and take the proceeds of their prostitution. Pimping is always a felony and is punished by a prison sentence of three, six, or eight years.

Find a Knowledgeable Criminal Attorney Near Me

You risk facing an arrest and charges under CPC 266 for enticing a child to prostitution. This occurs if you entice a child into a brothel to engage in sexual acts with another person. Enticing a child to prostitution is a serious offense that can attract a misdemeanor or felony charge based on the case circumstances. If you are convicted of this offense, you risk spending time in jail or prison and paying hefty fines.

Violating PC 266 carries severe legal penalties. A conviction for enticing a minor to prostitution can also impact your life. In this predicament, you must aggressively battle the charges to avoid the consequences of your conviction.

California law on crimes involving minors is complex. You need a reliable sex crimes defense attorney to navigate your legal situation. At Los Angeles Criminal Lawyer, we have the legal expertise and experience you need to secure a favorable outcome in your case. Contact us at 310-502-1314 from any location in Los Angeles, CA, for guidance.