Pottawattamie County has about 93,000 residents and is located on Iowa’s western border, near Omaha, Nebraska. Its county seat is Council Bluffs.  Complaints from residents about prostitution date back to the 1870s. More recently, there have been multiple documented cases of sex trafficking (of both adults and minors) occurring within the county, as well as the targeted sexual assaults and homicides of prostituted women. Local child sex trafficking cases have also included child sexual abuse materials (CSAM, often called “child pornography” in legal codes).  For example, in March, 2020, a 52 year old man from Carter Lake (within Pottawattamie County) was sentenced in United States District Court after pleading guilty to Transportation with Intent to Engage in Sexual Activity, Distribution of Marijuana and Cocaine to a Person Under the Age of Twenty-One, and Distribution of Child Pornography. The investigation began when a Douglas County (Nebraska) Sheriff’s Department Deputy encountered a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot of a motel. The driver was subsequently arrested and the two females involved in this matter were left at the motel. The defendant picked up the two females, ages seventeen and eighteen, from the Omaha motel and drove them to his home in Pottawattamie County. He had previously transported one of the victims from Omaha across the state line to his home, where he set up prostitution “dates” and provided them with cocaine and marijuana. The offender took pictures of the seventeen year old on his cell phone and distributed the CSAM to a friend.

In efforts to reduce prostitution, and this sex trafficking and its related crimes, the county’s prosecutor’s and sheriffs offices have supported the use of demand reduction tactics, and local agencies participate in the Southwest Iowa Narcotics Task Force (SINTW), which has implemented sting operations. The Council Bluffs Police Department (CBPD) has conducted both street-level and web-based reverse stings. Street-level operations targeting sex buyers date back to at least 1987, when CBPD officers partnered with Omaha Police to conduct a sting at an interstate truck stop known for commercial sex activity.

Law enforcement, including the CBPD and SINTW, have conducted web-based reversals in Council Bluffs since at least early 2009, when six sex buyers were arrested after responding to a decoy online advertisement placed by the SINTW. Police and public officials reported that cameras and audio equipment were used to record the solicitations and gather evidence. The sex buyers’ names were publicized in local media outlets. It was also reported that at least one of the offenders had pled guilty and been sentenced to “one year of unsupervised probation and 30 hours of community service.” Since that time, the community has served as the staging ground for over a dozen additional web-based reverse stings. The operations have netted anywhere from 5 to 15 sex buyers, and many operations are collaborative, including participation of the Pottawattamie County and Mills County sheriff’s offices, Council Bluffs, Omaha (NE), and La Vista (NE) police departments, FBI, and a Child Exploitation Task Force.

All individuals arrested for prostitution-related offenses– including adult women selling sex — continue to have their identities publicized by local media outlets. In February 2019, at least five men from Council Bluffs, McClelland, Omaha and Bellevue were charged with solicitation of a prostitute during a web-based anti-sex trafficking operation by the Council Bluffs Police Department Vice Unit. One of the suspects from McClelland made contact with the officer through text messages and arranged a time to meet in Council Bluffs “for a date.”