Walton is a home rule-class city in Boone and Kenton counties, Kentucky. Its population is roughly 5,500. Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as a strategy for prevention and response. Demand reduction tactics used in the town include reverse stings, and the disclosure of sex buyer identities. For example, in July, 2021, a man was arrested in the lobby of a hotel in Walton, Kentucky. He was accused of offering to pay undercover officers to have sex with a fictional minor after responding to an ad as part of a prostitution sting. Police alleged that the man contacted an undercover deputy and explicitly described the sexual abuse acts he wished to perform on a minor. He believed the undercover deputy was “a prostitute” and the minor was the prostituted woman’s daughter, court documents said. Officers said that the minor was age 13, and that the suspect’s response was he wanted a child age six or younger. He agreed to meet a 13-year-old for $20 at an agreed-upon location and time, police said. Officers accused the man of sending a message stating “send out your daughter” once he arrived to meet the child.  During his arrest, police confiscated the man’s cell phone and, in a forensic review, found around 335 videos and images of child pornography stored on the device. A federal search warrant was obtained to search a cloud storage and file hosting service account associated with the suspect, the documents say. Investigators found around 500 files that matched hash values, or a numeric value that uniquely identifies data, for confirmed child sexual abuse material. The man was eventually convicted, pleading guilty in April, 2022 to a single count of transporting or shipping a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct, according to a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky. As part of his plea, prosecutors dismissed charges of traveling in interstate commerce for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct and “possession of child pornography.” In July, 2022 he was sentenced in federal court to 14 years in prison, followed by eight years of probation upon his release from prison. The man’s identity was included in news reports.