Zach Wendling
LINCOLN — Lawmakers took a first step this week in advancing two portions of a three-part crime package that Attorney General Mike Hilgers previewed earlier this year.
Legislative Bill 934, introduced by State Sen. Carolyn Bosn of Lincoln, would allow the Attorney General’s Office and defendants to demand jury trials in response to alleged consumer protection violations or deceptive trade practices. The attorney general would also be allowed to freeze bad actors’ assets and prevent them from expending stolen funds.
“Victim restitution should be a primary objective of Nebraska’s consumer protection laws,” Bosn said Thursday.
LB 934 expands the jurisdiction for such claims, too, allowing the attorney general to bring a case under the Consumer Protection Act in the same county that a case under the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act has been filed. LB 934 was advanced Thursday to second-round debate 35-0.
‘Help give Nebraskans hope’
Bosn, a former prosecutor, pointed to two cases in the past year in which Nebraskans fell victim to elaborate scams.
In one, a fraudulent farm equipment company scammed an Omaha family out of $9,200. In the other, Hilgers sued a private Husker ticket package seller for allegedly scamming at least $87,000 from donors, which the state said was later spent on Disneyland tickets, purchases in Hawaii and other personal expenses.
“I’m asking you to help give Nebraskans hope when they fall victim to these circumstances,” Bosn said.
Through a Judiciary Committee amendment adopted 33-0, the attorney general must have “reasonable cause” before taking certain actions, such as requiring statements or freezing assets, and an associated court order must be for “connected accounts.”
“Connected accounts,” or assets, means any financial or bank account as well as money, assets or property connected with the alleged violation.
An ex parte order would be allowed to temporarily freeze or impound connected accounts for up to 14 days and must be set for a hearing with the defendant able to respond.
State Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Omaha, Judiciary Committee vice chair, said the amendment includes proper guardrails and gives the attorney general the tools he needs to keep Nebraskans and their assets safe from bad actors.
“I think this makes a very strong bill now, and I am very pleased with where we all landed,” DeBoer said.
Child exploitation and human trafficking
State Sen. Christy Armendariz of Omaha also successfully added LB 1096 to the package through an amendment adopted 33-0 to Bosn’s bill. Armendariz’s proposal is designed to combat online child exploitation and human trafficking beyond the geographic limits of Nebraska and “reach the world’s most prolific purveyors of exploitation of children and sex trafficking victims.”
LB 1096 would expand the definition of a deceptive trade practice to include publicly available visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct, obscene material or material harmful to minors. In the material, participants or observers would need to be either:
- Younger than 18.
- A trafficking victim.
- Someone who has not expressly and voluntarily consented to the depiction.
- Someone who participated in any depicted act without consent.
Armendariz said her bill gives Hilgers and his office the ability to investigate the extent of exploitative material “on some of the most frequented websites on the internet.”
Hemp regulation, delta-8 sales
A third bill promoted by Hilgers did not get added to the Bosn-Armendariz package. That was Sumner State Sen. Teresa Ibach’s LB 999.
A portion of LB 999, to shift regulation of hemp growers back to the federal government, is advancing after lawmakers amended it onto the Agriculture Committee’s priority bill, LB 262. The Agriculture package faces one more round of debate.
A different part of LB 999 would outlaw delta-8 sales in Nebraska. This has stalled in the Judiciary Committee.