On the Front Lines of the U.S. Fight against Child Abuse, Human Trafficking and Sexual Assault

Luis CdeBaca, a native of Huxley, Iowa, is the Director of the Justice Department's Office for Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. Mr. CdeBaca served as Chief Counsel of the Civil Rights Division's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit under the Bush Administration. During the Clinton Administration he was the Justice Department's Involuntary Servitude and Slavery Coordinator, and in 2009 President Obama appointed him to direct the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Department of State, where he served until 2014. He was instrumental in developing the United States' victim-centered approach to combating modern slavery. He has investigated and prosecuted servitude cases in which victims were held for prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation, farm labor, domestic service, and factory work. Luis CdeBaca is one of the Justice Department's most decorated federal prosecutors. He was honored with the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award for his service as lead trial counsel in the largest slavery prosecution in U.S. history - United States v. Kil Soo Lee - which involved the enslavement of over 300 Vietnamese and Chinese workers in a garment factory in American Samoa. He received the Director's Award from the Executive Office of United States Attorneys for his work on the New York "Deaf Mexican" trinket-peddling slavery case, and was awarded the Department's highest litigation honor - the Attorney General's John Marshall Award - for his work as lead counsel in a path-breaking prostitution slavery case in Florida, United States v. Cadena.