Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as a strategy for prevention and response. For example, in December, 2017, a man was arrested in a “prostitution incident” in Bloomsdale. The Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to a business on Enterprise Road for reports of a woman soliciting money from truck drivers for sexual favors. Deputies made contact with a male sex buyer in his vehicle, and after a high speed vehicle pursuit, the driver was arrested. The vehicle was found to be stolen, and the driver wanted on an active warrant for federal probation violation (escape). The man’s identity was disclosed in news reports. The woman was also arrested and charged with prostitution.
In April 2019 a former arts teacher was sentenced to five years of probation for paying an underage boy for sex. The 47-year-old man from Bloomsdale was sentenced after pleading guilty to patronizing prostitution from a child 14 years old or younger. Authorities began investigating after a Ste. Genevieve County deputy stopped the man with the boy in his car. The investigation found that he had met the boy on the app Grindr and paid him for sex acts. While not a reverse sting operation, the sex buyer was arrested and his identity disclosed in news reports.
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