Pandering and Related Commercial Sex Felonies in Michigan (MCL 750.452 to 750.459)

Michigan's prostitution chapter contains felonies aimed at people who induce, profit from or house another person's prostitution. MCL 750.455, commonly called pandering, and MCL 750.457, accepting the earnings of a prostitute, are each felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison.^[1][3] Keeping a house of prostitution is a felony punishable by up to 5 years.^[5]

Several of these statutes describe conduct done to another person by threat, violence or fraud. If that is happening to you or to someone you know, the National Human Trafficking Hotline answers 24 hours a day at 1-888-373-7888 and calls are confidential; in immediate danger, call 911.^[8]

This page covers the felony sections of the prostitution chapter. The misdemeanor offenses of soliciting and engaging services are in prostitution and solicitation laws, and the separate trafficking chapter is in human trafficking for commercial sex.

The felonies at a glance

Section	Conduct	Maximum penalty
MCL 750.455	Eight listed forms of procuring, inducing or enticing a person into prostitution ("pandering")	20 years; no fine stated[1][2]
MCL 750.457	Accepting or living on the earnings of a person engaged in prostitution	20 years[3]
MCL 750.459(1)	Transporting a person into, through or across Michigan for prostitution	20 years, a fine of $20,000, or both[9]
MCL 750.456	Placing or leaving one's spouse in a house of prostitution by force, fraud, intimidation or threat	20 years[10]
MCL 750.458	Attempting to detain a person in a house of prostitution because of a debt	Not less than 2 years or more than 20 years[10]
MCL 750.459(2)	Selling travel services to facilitate prostitution or human trafficking	5 years, a fine of $10,000, or both; 10 years and $15,000 if the violation involves conduct against a minor[9]
MCL 750.452	Keeping, maintaining or operating a house or place resorted to for prostitution or lewdness	5 years, a fine of $5,000, or both[5]

Each figure is the maximum the statute allows, not a forecast of the sentence in any case. For how sentences are determined, see how sentencing guidelines work.

What does MCL 750.455 prohibit?

The section says that a person who does any of eight things is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 20 years.^[2] In the statute's order, they are:

1. Procuring an inmate for a house of prostitution.^[2]
2. Inducing, persuading, encouraging, inveigling or enticing a person to become a prostitute.^[2]
3. By promise, threat or violence, or by any device or scheme, causing, inducing, persuading, encouraging, taking, placing, harboring, inveigling or enticing a person to become an inmate of a house of prostitution or assignation place or any place where prostitution is practiced, encouraged or allowed.^[2]
4. By any promise or threat, or by violence or any device or scheme, causing, inducing, persuading, encouraging, inveigling or enticing an inmate of a house of prostitution or place of assignation to remain there as an inmate.^[2]
5. By any promise or threat, or by violence, any device or scheme, fraud or artifice, or by duress of person or goods, or by abuse of any position of confidence or authority, or having legal charge, taking, placing, harboring, inveigling, enticing, persuading, encouraging or procuring any person to engage in prostitution.^[2]
6. Inveigling, enticing, persuading, encouraging or procuring any person to come into Michigan or to leave Michigan for the purpose of prostitution.^[2]
7. Taking or detaining a person for the purpose of sexual intercourse upon the pretense of marriage.^[2]
8. Receiving or giving, or agreeing to receive or give, money or a thing of value for procuring or attempting to procure a person to become a prostitute or to come into or leave the state for prostitution.^[2]

The section's printed heading is "Certain conduct as felony." The word "pandering" comes from the title of the model jury instruction, M Crim JI 36.10.^[1]

"To become a prostitute"

Two of the eight forms, the second and the eighth, speak of a person "becoming" a prostitute.^[2] In People v Morey the Michigan Supreme Court read those words to mean a change into that status, and held that "someone who is already practicing prostitution cannot be enticed to become a prostitute."^[6]

The benchbook reports that the Court of Appeals applied Morey in a 2023 decision, People v Thurmond, and held that a conviction under subdivision (b) is possible where the person had effectively abandoned prostitution and returned to it because of the defendant; how long a gap is necessary is a question for the jury.^[6] That limit concerns the "become" language. The fifth form uses different words: procuring any person "to engage in prostitution" by promise, threat, violence, fraud or the other listed means.^[2]

What is "accepting the earnings of a prostitute"?

MCL 750.457(1) reaches two kinds of conduct.^[4]

• Knowingly accepting, receiving, levying or appropriating any money or valuable thing "without consideration" from the proceeds of the earnings of any person engaged in prostitution.^[4]
• Knowing a person to be a prostitute, living or deriving support or maintenance, in whole or in part, from the earnings or proceeds of that person's prostitution, or from money loaned, advanced to or charged against that person by a keeper, manager or inmate of a place where prostitution is practiced or allowed.^[4]

"Consideration" is a legal term for something of value given in exchange. Subsection (2) says that the acceptance, receipt, levy or appropriation of the money or thing of value is presumptive evidence of lack of consideration.^[3] The offense is a felony punishable by up to 20 years.^[3]

The current model jury instructions for this offense are M Crim JI 36.11 and 36.11a; the benchbook still cites the older number, M Crim JI 20.35, which the instructions now list as renumbered.^[3]

Transporting, travel services, and houses of prostitution

Transporting a person for prostitution

MCL 750.459(1) prohibits knowingly transporting a person, causing a person to be transported, or aiding in obtaining transportation, into, through or across Michigan for the purpose of prostitution or with the intent to induce, entice or compel the person to become a prostitute.^[11] It is a felony punishable by up to 20 years, a fine of up to $20,000, or both.^[9] The case may be prosecuted in any county or city in or through which the person was transported.^[11]

Selling travel services

Subsection (2) prohibits knowingly selling or offering to sell travel services that include or facilitate travel for the purpose of engaging in what would be a prostitution or human trafficking violation if it occurred in Michigan.^[11] "Travel services" includes transportation, hotel or other lodging, package tours and travel vouchers.^[11] The maximum is 5 years, a fine of $10,000, or both, rising to 10 years, a fine of $15,000, or both if the violation involves conduct against a minor.^[9]

Keeping or leasing a place

Keeping, maintaining or operating a house of ill-fame, bawdy house, or any house or place resorted to for prostitution or lewdness, or aiding and abetting that, is a felony punishable by up to 5 years, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.^[5] A landlord who lets a dwelling knowing the lessee intends to use it for prostitution, or who receives rent with reasonable cause to believe it is so used, commits a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months or a fine of up to $750; the statute excludes rent for any period before the landlord had reasonable cause to believe the use.^[12]

Spouses and debts

Two older sections remain in the chapter. Placing or leaving one's spouse in a house of prostitution, or to lead a life of prostitution, by force, fraud, intimidation or threat is a felony punishable by up to 20 years.^[10] Attempting to detain a person in a house of prostitution because of a debt the person contracted while living there is a felony with a stated minimum: not less than 2 years or more than 20 years.^[10]

How these felonies relate to trafficking charges

The Human Trafficking chapter is separate. It prohibits recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining an individual for forced labor or services, and the definition of "services" expressly includes commercial sexual activity.^[13][14] For a minor, the trafficking statute prohibits obtaining the minor for commercial sexual activity "by any means," regardless of whether the person knows the minor's age.^[15]

The trafficking penalty section states that it does not prohibit a person from being charged with, convicted of, or punished for any other violation of law arising out of the same transaction, and allows the court to order a trafficking sentence served consecutively to a sentence for another crime.^[16] Which charges a prosecuting attorney brings is a charging decision; this guide states no rule about how that decision is made. See who decides to charge.

Registration, testing and time limits

Registry. A violation of MCL 750.455 is listed as a Tier II offense in the Sex Offenders Registration Act.^[7] See SORA tiers for what that tier requires.

Testing. A person arrested and charged under MCL 750.452 or 750.455 may, upon order of the court, be examined or tested for sexually transmitted infection, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.^[17]

Law enforcement. MCL 750.459 does not apply to a law enforcement officer performing official duties, except that the exemption is lost if the officer engages in sexual penetration in the course of those duties.^[18]

Time limit for charges. Unless MCL 767.24 sets a different period for the offense, charges must be filed within 6 years after the offense, and time during which the accused did not usually and publicly reside in Michigan is not counted.^[19]

Felony procedure from arraignment to trial is laid out in the timeline of a felony case, and general defenses in defenses to sex crime charges. Federal law has its own offenses involving interstate travel and communications; see the overview of federal sex crimes.

What people get wrong

"Pandering is the name of the statute." The section's heading is "Certain conduct as felony"; "pandering" is the jury instruction's title.^[1]

"These felonies carry fines like other felonies." MCL 750.455 states a prison maximum and no fine.^[1] MCL 750.459(1) and 750.452 do state fines.^[9][5]

"Accepting earnings requires force." The words of MCL 750.457(1) are about knowingly taking money without consideration or living on the earnings; force is not among them.^[4]