NY Financier Fails to Undo $3.58 Million Sex Trafficking Verdict

Howard Rubin, the ignominious former Wall Street trader accused of violently abusing dozens of women in his Manhattan penthouse, lost his appeal to undo a $3.85 million sex trafficking verdict on Friday.

He challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, claiming the plaintiffs failed to prove that the encounters were non-consensual, or that he knew or disregarded the fact that force or coercion would be used. But the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit disagreed.

Where the evidence shows, like it does in this case, a modus operandi involving force, fraud or coercion, the TVPA’s mens rea element is ...