Boulder is a city of roughly 104,000 residents, located 25 miles northwest of Denver in Boulder County, CO. The city is known to have substantial problems associated with prostitution and sex trafficking. Among the more serious crimes associated with the county’s commercial sex market is child sex trafficking. For example, in 2012, the city of Boulder was listed among a handful of Colorado communities that served as the operating bases for a child sex trafficking network operating on backpage.com, a website known for prostitution and sex trafficking. As a result of the investigation, four individuals were charged in a federal 70-count indictment, with transporting underage girls to hotels in Denver,  Boulder,  Lakewood, Grand Junction, and Glenwood Springs to be sexually exploited in exchange for money.

In response, efforts to reduce demand for commercial sex in the area have been employed. For example, the Boulder Police Department has staged at operations targeting sex buyers in the county. In 2014, the Boulder Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children led a web-based reverse sting operation focused on targeting individuals seeking to sexually exploit minors in exchange for money online. According to reports, officials posed as a mother of a 12-year-old girl seeking to sexually exploit her daughter online. A suspected sex buyer engaged in communication with undercover officials online and agreed to pay the “mother” in exchange for sex acts with the 12-year-old girl. Upon the offender’s arrival to the agreed upon location, he was arrested by undercover officials. In addition to the Boulder Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children, the Longmont Police Department, the Boulder Police Department, and the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office participated in the investigation. The offender was arrested on charges of sexual assault on a child, a Class 5 felony, solicitation of child prostitution, a Class 3 felony, and criminal solicitation, a Class 4 felony. He was booked in the Boulder County Jail on $50,000 bond. The arrested offender’s identity and image were included in reports by local media outlets.

Some arrests of sex buyers are the result of investigations of offenses against real victims, rather than stings using police decoys.  For example, in March, 2023, a trial date was set for a Boulder sex offender previously indicted by a grand jury and accused of using drugs and violence to force multiple women into prostitution, and to paying for access to sexually assault a 12-year-old girl. The man was indicted in 2022 on three counts of human trafficking for sexual servitude, human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude, pimping, three counts of pandering, sexual assault, invasion of privacy, second-degree assault, inducement of child prostitution, “patronizing a prostituted child,” sexual assault on a child, sexual assault on a child – pattern of abuse, four counts of sexual exploitation of a child, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, six drug charges, three weapons charges and a special offender charge. The man could be facing up to 155 years to life in prison if found guilty on all counts, according to a release from the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office.

Loss of employment is also a consequence of buying sex in the city. For example, in 2007, a 46-year-old Boulder middle school counselor was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover female officer. According to reports, the investigation was initiated after a prostituted woman recognized the sex buyer as her children’s’ school counselor. She notified the school district after the sex buyer allegedly confessed to the prostituted woman that his fantasy was to “have sex with a 12-year-old girl.” Records show he was charged with soliciting prostitution, a misdemeanor. As a result of his arrest, the school placed the sex buyer on paid administrative leave. Upon further investigation, detectives discovered that this was not the first time that the sex buyer had lost his employment for soliciting prostitution charges. In 1994, the offender resigned from his position at O’Connell Middle School in Golden, CO, after attempting to solicit sex from a news reporter in an online chat room. The news reporter named the sex buyer and his place of employment in a piece published in November of 1994. He was allowed to finish out the 1994/1995 school year but, voluntarily resigned at the end of the year. In addition, after the sex buyer was arrested in 2007, a 17-year-old girl reportedly told police that the former counselor had solicited sex acts from her. She told officials that she posted an ad on Craigslist.com in search of a tall British man. According to reports, the two met and drove up Flagstaff Mountain where she said they engaged in commercial sex. After the sex buyer’s arrest, he called the teenage girl and told her to deny their encounter. At the offender’s sentencing in 2009, he asked not to be placed on probation for the prostitution charge to avoid undergoing sex-offender treatment. Instead the judge sentenced the sex buyer to 100 hours of community service and 10 days on a jail work crew.