Champaign is a city of 89,000 residents in east/central Illinois. Problems associated with the local commercial sex market have been well documented and include cases of sex trafficking. For example, in January, 2021, the U.S. District court sentenced a man to multiple life prison terms for trafficking young women for sex. The man ran his prostitution enterprise from a motel in Champaign where he lived, and used women he recruited from Champaign, Sangamon, and Peoria counties.

to combat the consumer level demand that drives all prostitution and sex trafficking, reverse stings have been conducted in Champaign at least as early as 1994.  That year, a week-long, street-level sting and reverse sting (“Operation Hooked”) resulted in the arrests of 34 sex buyers (as well as 13 prostituted women).  More recently, Champaign police have conducted web based reverse stings to curb the demand for prostitution. In 2009, a reversal captured four men whose names, ages, and hometowns were reported to the media.

Arrests of sex buyers are sometimes the result of investigations or enforcement that do not involve reverse stings using police decoys.  For example, in November, 2018, a 21-year veteran of the Champaign Police Department was arrested and charged with soliciting a prostituted woman. His name arose during a federal investigation as police were investigating a different man for alleged sex trafficking in Champaign County. Police found text messages between the suspect and the alleged sex trafficker in which the suspect was trying to arrange to pay for sex. Illinois State troopers stepped in at that point to investigate. They said two prostituted women met the man in the spring of 2018 at hotels in Champaign County. One of them knew he was a Champaign police officer. The man was sent a summons to appear in Champaign County Circuit Court for arraignment.  He had retired in August, 2018, after the solicitation allegations came to light. The man’s identity was included in news reports.

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