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Florida’s Expungement Laws: Helping Survivors of Human Trafficking
This program will explain the law on human trafficking expungement, describe the process for clearing a survivor’s criminal history, detail the effects of expungement on a survivor’s life, and dispel myths and misconceptions regarding expungement.
Webinar Resources:
About the Presenters:
Brent Woody
Brent Woody, Lead Attorney and Executive Director of the Justice Restoration Center
Brent Woody is the lead attorney and executive director of the Justice Restoration Center, a nonprofit organization providing trauma-informed restorative pro bono legal services and advocacy for survivors of human trafficking, as well as advocating on trafficking-related legislation and policy matters.
Since 2009, Brent has made it a personal mission to provide free legal services to victims and survivors of human trafficking. Understanding that individuals subjected to exploitation in the forms of forced labor, commercial sex, and domestic servitude had no means to obtain desperately needed legal services, Brent committed to never turning away a survivor with trafficking-related legal needs.
Beginning in 2012, Brent’s work for trafficking survivors and victims rose to a new level as he began advocating before the Florida legislature for the rights of human trafficking survivors to petition a court for the expungement of criminal history records and vacating of criminal convictions for arrests while under the coercion of a trafficker or within a scheme of human trafficking. Unjust criminal history records and convictions close many doors for trafficking survivors, and this law was desperately needed by an untold number of victims. As a result, Florida’s human trafficking victim expungement law was unanimously passed and signed into law in 2013. Brent now represents over 200 trafficking survivors from in and out of the state and from within the Florida inmate population. Legislatively, Brent has initiated and successfully advocated for, among other things, the elimination of the statute of limitations for human trafficking offenses, enhanced penalties for traffickers, enhanced penalties for sex-buyers, the non-criminalization of commercially sexually exploited minors, and exemptions from the public records laws for the locations of safe houses.
Brent’s pro bono work has expanded into the Florida prison system as his organization has discovered that countless inmates were trafficked before entering the corrections system and are destined to return to “the life” when they’re released, simply because they don’t have any apparent options. The Justice Restoration Center, in partnership with his wife Pamela’s nonprofit, Advocates Against Human Trafficking, is helping break that cycle by coordinating secure and therapeutic residential housing upon release and facilitating safe releases and transportation.
Brent also handles coerced debt issues, name changes, obtaining public benefits, and other civil matters for trafficking survivors and coordinates other pro bono counsel for matters outside his practice area and involving out-of-state matters.
Brent graduated from USF-St. Petersburg and the Florida State University College of Law. He’s
married to Pamela, and they have three children.
Danielle Lennox
Danielle Lennox, Assistant State Attorney, Human Trafficking Unit, 17th Judicial Circuit, Broward County, FL
Danielle Lennox graduated from the University of South Florida, in Tampa, Florida with her bachelor’s degree in criminology and political science. She then attended Nova Law School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she earned her Juris Doctor. After graduating law school, Danielle began working at the State Attorney’s Office for Broward County as an Assistant State Attorney and has been there for almost 10 years. She has dedicated her entire professional career towards getting justice for victims and she is currently the Head of the Human Trafficking Division for her office, where she partners with law enforcement in the prosecution of human trafficking cases. As part of her role as the Head of the Human Trafficking Division, she is solely responsible for overseeing the law enforcement investigation of all Broward County human trafficking cases, speaking to the survivors of those crimes, filing the appropriate criminal charges against the perpetrators of human trafficking, seeing the case through in court until the case is either resolved via a negotiated plea or trial and to review/approve any and all human trafficking related expungements. Her dedication and hard work earned her the award of Prosecutor of the Year for 2023 by the Broward Victim’s Rights Coalition.
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