Padaviya

MANHATTAN — A Washington Heights mother whose miscarried fetus was found dead and wrapped in plastic bags inside a trash can in an alley next to her home has been arrested and charged with self-induced abortion, police said Thursday.

Yaribely Almonte, 20, faces first degree self-abortion, a class A misdemeanor, for the death of her female fetus, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters Thursday. Sources said the pregnancy was about 24 weeks along, which is on the threshold between a first-degree and second-degree misdemeanor, a lesser charge.

The charge, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail, applies to a woman who “commits or submits to an abortional act upon herself which causes her miscarriage, unless such abortional act is justifiable.”

Sources said that Almonte, who also has a 3-year-old daughter, told investigators that she had taken an herbal tea before delivering the baby, who was stillborn.

The fetus was discovered by the super of Almonte’s 191st Street building on Nov. 29 inside a box that was buried beneath other trash bags inside a bin, the super’s son told DNAinfo.

Hall of Fame football linebacker Lawrence Taylor will not spend a day in jail for paying to have sex with a 16-year-old runaway on May 6, 2010. The girl was escorted by her trafficker to Taylor’s hotel room in suburban Ramapo, New York, where Taylor paid $300 to have sex with her.

In March of last year, the girl’s family had informed the authorities that she was missing. About 293,000 children in the United States are at risk of becoming victims of sextrafficking, and many are runaways who are picked up by traffickers. The victim in this situation was recruited by 36-year-old parolee Rasheed Davis, who allegedly promised her a place to stay and a way to make money. Then he forced her into prostitution. On the night of the Taylor incident, she refused to go to Taylor’s hotel, so Davis allegedly kicked her, punched her and drove her there against her will. Her poor physical condition–a black eye and other facial injuries–apparently did not concern Taylor or deter him from having sex with her.

Taylor was originally charged with third-degree rape, a felony offense that carries up to four years in prison, but he pled guilty to two misdemeanors charges, soliciting a prostitute and sexual misconduct (having sex with a person too young to consent). He was given six years probation and will have to register as a sex offender. Ignorance of age is not a defense against statutory rape in New York, but apparently it mattered in this case. Taylor told the court that the victim said she was 19, and this, along with his cooperation with authorities, earned him just a slap on the wrist.

The city of New York is considered a hub for sex trafficking, but since trafficking was added to the penal code in 2008 only 25 arrests have been made (through September 2010) and only five traffickers have been sentenced. The victim in this case is classified as a “severely trafficked person” under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 because she is a minor engaged in prostitution and Davis now faces federal trafficking charges.

It’s a shame that most media coverage has missed the sex-trafficking angle, referring to Davis as a “pimp” instead of a trafficker and the minor as a “teen hooker” instead of a sex-trafficking victim.  It’s also a shame that the johns who drive the market for sex trafficking are not held accountable for their contribution to this heinous crime.

“If you’re not prostituting yourself, you don’t need condoms,” a New York City police officer said to a woman as he confiscated her rubbers, according to a survey by the Urban Justice Center. Say what? I don’t know about you, but I can think of reasons other than sex work why a woman might need condoms.