Angelina County is a county in East Texas with a population of roughly 86,000 residents. Its county seat is Lufkin, TX. Prostitution activity has been well-documented throughout the county. This activity and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law enforcement agencies from residents and businesses. Among the more serious crimes associated with the local commercial sex market are sex trafficking, child endangerment, and violence committed against people involved in these transactions. For example, in 2017, the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted a web-based sting that resulted in the arrest and charging of a local sex trafficker for prostitution/online solicitation of a minor. Special agents with the DPS Criminal Investigation Division communicated with the offender through social media. During the course of the conversation, the offender allegedly agreed to pay for sex with a minor. At that point, undercover agents set up a meeting location in Lufkin and waited for the suspect to arrive and arrested him when he appeared and took steps to complete the transaction. The offender was transported to and booked at the Angelina County jail. The offender’s identity, photo, age, location, and charges were included in reports from local news sources. In 2018, an Angelina County grand jury indicted a local sex trafficker on two third-degree felony online solicitation of a minor charges. According to the affidavit, a Lufkin PD officer was dispatched to an apartment complex after receiving a report that a man had sent sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl on Facebook Messenger. The offender allegedly sent the minor a photo of his genitalia, sexually explicit voice messages, and asked her to perform oral sex in exchange for several hundred dollars. A friend of the 15-year-old girl, who was 19 at the time, messaged the offender to ask why he was sending sexually explicit content to a minor, the offender responded by offering the friend money in exchange for sex as well. After discovering the offender’s prior arrest record, officials matched his Facebook profile picture with booking photos from prior arrests. Officials arrested the exploiter and seized his phone as evidence. The offender agreed to a plea deal where he was sentenced to serve eight years in a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison. The offender’s identity, photo, age, location, and charges were released by local news sources.

To combat these crimes and related problems, county and local agencies have adopted aggressive and comprehensive approaches to identify and apprehend sex buyers. For example, in 2013, a man was arrested and booked in Angelina County Jail for solicitation of prostitution as a result of civilian reports on two separate occasions within the same week. According to reports, a woman was walking her dog along the Azalea Trail (a local walking trail), when she passed a man who began following her, who then started saying sexual comments to the woman. The second instance occurred five days later where the same man was running along the trail and passed a woman, only to turn around and start saying sexual comments to her. The woman told police that as she was running away from the offender, he offered to pay her for sex. The same offender was arrested later that same year, in July of 2013, for indecent exposure after he exposed and touched himself provocatively while telling a woman to look. The offender was sentenced to 120 days in jail. In 2014, the offender once again exposed himself as he was masturbating while riding his bike in Kiwanis Park. A woman reported the incident to the Lufkin Police Department. According to officials, the offender was arrested and charged with public lewdness and criminal trespass. The sex offender had a criminal trespass warning against him barring him from being in any city park after the 2013 incidents. The offender’s identity, photo, age, location, and charges were released by local news sources.

Loss of employment is another consequence of buying sex that has occurred within the county.  For example, in January, 2022 an Angelina County Airport employee was arrested by the sheriff’s office on a charge of soliciting prostitution from a woman he supervised. The man had worked as the lead lineman at the airport, where he supervised an 18-year-old woman whom he reportedly offered to pay $300 for oral sex and sexual intercourse, according to an arrest affidavit issued by Justice of the Peace. His employment at the airport was subsequently terminated.