Geary County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas with approximately 37,000 residents. Its county seat and most populous city is Junction City, KS. Prostitution and sex trafficking activity have been well-documented in incorporated and unincorporated areas of the county. This activity and its ancillary crimes has generated complaints to local law enforcement by residents and businesses. For example, in the late 1980’s, the county was known to be an area for lured individuals into the commercial sex trade because of its close proximity to the military base Fort Riley. According to reports, women were being transported from Korea to Junction City and Fort Riley, where they were then trafficked to other U.S. states such as Hawaii, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Wyoming. In 2014, a man and a woman living at Fort Riley were arrested for the murder of a Junction City missing woman after her body was found in a rural area of the county. According to reports, the victim was a known prostituted woman and the couple was known to have been in contact with her prior to her disappearance. In 2017, the couple was found guilty of assaulting, robbing, raping, and murdering the woman. Among the more serious issues associated with the area’s commercial sex market is child sex trafficking.

The first known use of reverse stings in the community occurred in 1976. These operations do not occur frequently, but have been conducted several times in the county. More recently, in June 2012, a web-based reverse sting was conducted by the Geary County Sheriff’s Office with assistance from the Grandview Plaza Police Department and the Junction City Police Department, that targeted both prostituted persons and sex buyers. The operation was initiated as a response by the Sheriff’s Office to the increasing number of reports regarding suspected child sex trafficking activity occurring in the county. However, the investigation did not result in any arrests for sex trafficking. As a result of the investigation, 16 individuals were arrested for prostitution and soliciting prostitution (sex buying) charges. Deputies used a Junction City hotel as the meeting location where the decoy and support teams made the arrests.

In 2017, the Geary County Sheriff’s Office and the Junction City Police Department participated in the FBI’s annual nationwide effort to combat child sex trafficking, Operation Cross Country XI. As a result of the four-day, street-level and web-based reverse sting operation led by the Kansas City FBI Division’s Child Exploitation Task Force, three teenage victims of child sex trafficking were rescued and 10 individuals were arrested. The operation was conducted in 10 cities in Kansas and Missouri, including Topeka, KS and Junction City, KS. While the identities of arrested sex buyers and sex traffickers were not provided in articles about the operation, arrest photos were released by the Geary County Sheriff’s Office. The images contained the identity and charges of arrested sex buyers and sex traffickers in Geary County. In total, six men were arrested for soliciting promoting prostitution charges in Geary County. One of the arrested offenders was also arrested on felony drugs charges of “possession of depressants, stimulants, or hallucinogenic drugs.” As part of the operation, FBI agents and task force officers set up operations in hotels, casinos, and truck stops, as well as on street corners and on the Internet. As a result of the nationwide effort, 84 minors were rescued and 120 traffickers arrested.

Loss of employment is also a consequence of buying sex that has occurred in the county. For example, in January 2021, a Junction City High School athletic trainer was arrested on charges of sexual exploitation of a child and promoting obscenity to minors by officers from the Junction City Police Department. As a result of his arrest, in late January, Geary County Schools USD 475, suspended the offender from all duties at Junction City High School until the completion of the police investigation, according to Superintendent Reginald Eggleston. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts said [the former trainer] violated the Athletic Trainers Licensure Act when it decided to suspend his license indefinitely,

“Licensee violated K.A.R. 100-69-7(a)(10) by committing acts of sexual abuse, misconduct, or other improper sexual contact that exploited the licensee-patient relationship.”

A report from the KSBHA said the former trainer was “treating a student under 18 years old at Junction City High School and began sending the student ‘sexually explicit text messages’ to their cellphone, including nude images of himself and a ‘video of himself masturbating.'”

In August 2017, the offender was ordered by the court to serve 32 months in the Kansas Department of Corrections, however, the court reversed that decision and ordered the former trainer to 36 months of probation after serving 60 days in the Geary County Detention Center. Additionally, he was required to register as a sex offender for 25 years.