Bridgeton is a city of roughly 27,000 residents, located in southern New Jersey’s Cumberland County near Millville and Vineland. Prostitution, particularly indoor prostitution, has proven to be a severe and visible problem in the community for decades. On several occasions, Bridgeton Police Department officers have conducted raids and sweeps of suspected brothels in the city, often after receiving complaints and tips from local residents. Male sex buyers have at times been arrested during such raids, and had their names released in press; on at least one occasion, BPD officers reportedly recovered two women in a brothel raid they believed to be victims of sex trafficking. In that instance, 10 sex buyers and two pimps were arrested in the raid, but the women were not charged.

Bridgeton’s brothel networks have also been linked to homicides. In March 2015, five men were indicted in the murders of two “brothel workers” in Bridgeton. One of the victims, described by the Press of Atlantic City as “an underling in a widespread prostitution and human-trafficking enterprise operating in several New Jersey municipalities,” was allegedly “killed because of a ‘business problem’ involving finances with a brothel on Henry Street in Bridgeton. The other victim was allegedly “killed because he operated a rival brothel in the city.”

In addition to brothel raids, the Bridgeton Police Department has conducted periodic street-level reverse stings since at least 1999, and released the names of arrested sex buyers in press since at least 2006.