Mill Valley is a city of approximately 14,000 residents, located just north of San Francisco in Marin County, California, near San Rafael. Cases of prostitution and child sexual exploitation have been reported in the city. For example, in 2003, “a 43-year-old Mill Valley man was arraigned on charges that he repeatedly injected a 14-year-old girl with methamphetamine and sexually abused her” in the area. The city also drew national attention in the late 1980s when media outlets described the city as the operational base for a large-scale prostitution ring serving the greater San Francisco Bay area.

In June 2014, deputies from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office and officers from several county police departments conducted a web-based reverse sting in Mill Valley, San Rafael, Corte Madera, and Novato as part of the FBI’s Operation Cross Country. Twenty-two sex buyers were arrested as a result; their identities were not released to the public.