Heastie not hasty vs. kids’ predators

Time is running out for state lawmakers to fix New York’s weak child-sex-trafficking laws before the current session ends in June — hamstringing prosecutors trying to lock up youth predators.

With 13 days left in the legislative session, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie continues to argue that a proposed bill to toughen the laws is “too broad” — the same excuse critics say he’s used to stonewall the measure for four years.

“No, now is the time. Every day, there are so many girls and boys who are being trafficked,” said “Maria,” who wouldn’t give her real name but whose daughter was recruited into sex trafficking on the edge of Heastie’s Bronx district when she was just 12 years old.

New York is one of only two states where someone who prostitutes minors can’t be convicted as a sex trafficker unless prosecutors prove the child was “forced, defrauded or coerced” — so pimps often get away with lighter sentences because their victims frequently won’t testify.

Now is the time. Every day, there are so many girls and boys who are being trafficked. — An activist’s call for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (right) to bring the bill to a vote

The End Child Trafficking Act would bring the state into line with federal laws, which dictates that anyone who pimps out minors is a sex trafficker, because kids can never consent to selling themselves for sex with adults.

Maria said the law could have helped put her daughter’s own pimp behind bars back in 2007, when a classmate asked the girl to sleep with johns because she was “tired and in pain” from all the men the classmate’s own mom was forcing her to have sex with.

Maria found out what was going on, but didn’t bring her daughter to the police because the girl refused to speak against her traffickers. The mother says the pimps had brainwashed the girl into believing they were her real family and that Maria was a “bad parent.”

“She never would’ve said she was forced,” said Maria, who is now an activist with the anti-trafficking organization Not On My Watch.

If Heastie doesn’t allow the bill to get out of committee and to the floor for a vote before the June 20 deadline, it would be months’ more waiting until it would see the light of day

After a Post exposé last month on how the lax laws have allowed child-peddlers to walk free, Heastie said he was willing to sit down with the bill’s proponents to work out a compromise.

He followed through and claimed he was “hopeful something can happen before the end of the session” — but recently said he was still worried the current wording of the bill could ensnare innocent people, like landlords, who inadvertently rent to traffickers.

“We didn’t want someone who was tangentially just there, being hit with a violent B felony.” Heastie told The Post last week.

The bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (DWestchester), said she was still optimistic they would reach a compromise before the deadline.