Eagan is a city of about 66,000 residents, located south of St. Paul on the banks of the Minnesota River in Dakota County. Prostitution and sex trafficking have been well-documented in the city and surrounding areas, including child sex trafficking, which has resulted in complaints to law enforcement. There has also been a case in which a woman was charged with aggravated robbery after she and two of her friends allegedly robbed an Eagan man who hired her for sex in 2014. Online child sexual exploitation has also been documented locally. For example, in November 2015, a man was charged with production, advertising, receipt, and possession of child pornography (i.e., child sexual abuse materials) after he posed as a woman online for several years and convinced minor boys to send him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves.

At least on opportunistic arrest of a sex buyer has occurred in Eagan. In June 2012, a sex buyer was arrested and charged with four counts of engaging in prostitution with a minor for allegedly meeting two teenage girls for sex in Eagan. The man admitted to using a smartphone while at work to look up the 16- and 17-year-old girls on Backpage.com, where explicit photos of the girls were posted along with their cell phone numbers. Minneapolis police had been tracking the 16-year-old after suspecting the runaway was forced into commercial sex. Once officers tracked them down, both girls said they were sex trafficked at an Eagan hotel. Phone records and video surveillance allowed officers to identify one of the three men who paid the girls for sex in May, after which he was arrested and allegedly admitted to paying the girls for sex. His name and other identifying information was released to the press. The man pleaded guilty to the charges in August. In March 2013, the sex buyer was sentenced to three days in jail and 10 years probation, as well as being ordered to complete 60 hours of community service, register as a predatory offender, submit a DNA sample, and follow all other requirements of his probation.