Fredericksburg, VA
Categories:
Tactics Used |
|
---|---|
Auto Seizure | ✓ |
Buyer Arrests | ✓ |
Cameras | ✓ |
Community Service | ✓ |
Employment Loss | ✓ |
Identity Disclosure | ✓ |
IT Based Tactics | ✓ |
John School | ✓ |
Letters | ✓ |
License Suspension | ✓ |
Neighborhood Action | ✓ |
Public Education | ✓ |
Reverse Stings | ✓ |
SOAP Orders | ✓ |
Web Stings | ✓ |
Fredericksburg is a suburb of Washington, DC with 28,000 residents, located in northern Virginia. Prostitution and child sex trafficking have posed considerable problems in the city for over two decades, with activities frequently concentrated in and around Fredericksburg truck stops along Interstate 95. In one particularly high-profile case, federal prosecutors investigated a “prolific sex trafficker” who had exploited more than 55 women and girls as part of one of the largest such ventures law enforcement ever discovered in Virginia. The man used force, fraud, and coercion to compel servce in prostitution. He also got them addicted to drugs so he could more easily control them, used sodomy as a form of punishment, took away the women’s cellphones and IDs so they could not escape, and, in one case, had someone deliver a Fentanyl patch on which a prostitute died from an overdose. The man was arrested during a web-based prostitution sting at a hotel in Fredericksburg in 2013, and, after a lengthy investigation, he was charged in 2015, and convicted and sentenced in 2016.
To address issues associated with prostitution and sex trafficking, the Fredericksburg Police Department has conducted street-level reverse stings since the mid-1980s to reduce underlying demand driving the local commercial sex market. Sometimes the names and other identifying information about the sex buyers arrested have been reported in local news outlets.
Key Partners
- Fredericksburg Police Department
- Stafford County Sheriff’s Office
- Virginia State Police
Key Sources
Reverse Stings, Identity Disclosure:
- “Heavy Traffic along I-95 Lures Roving Bands of Hookers”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, July 18 1985.
- “Three Arrested in Prostitute Sting”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, February 18 1992.
- “Four Arrested on Prostitution Charges”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, April 20 1992.
- “City Police Snare Eight Truckers in Prostitution Sting”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, December 18 1992.
- “City Police Nab Four in Prostitution Sting”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, July 29 1996.
- “City Sting Nets Two Guilty Pleas”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, September 20 1996.
- “Ladies of the Night Hit City: Undercover Jobs End with Arrests”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, August 9 2000.
- “Woman Charged with Prostitution at Motel”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, August 22 2002.
- “Ruse at Motel Nets 8”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, February 4 2004.
- “Men Facing Charges in Prostitution Sting”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, April 4 2006.
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/thirty-year-sentence-for-one-of-the-most-prolific-sex-traffickers-virginia-has-ever-seen (2016)
Sex Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation in the Area:
- “Pandering Conviction Gets Man 3 Years, Case Involved 17-Year-Old Girl Who Was Runaway; Defendant Says He Loves Her; Pandering: Girl Is a Fugitive from Justice”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, February 23 2007.
- “Maryland Man Charged in Solicitation of Girl, 16″, Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 23 2014.
- “Man Convicted of Bringing Teen to Va. for Prostitution”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 24 2014.
- “Falls Church Man Indicted for Sex Trafficking Teen Girl”, CBS/WUSA-TV 9, August 21 2014.
- “Maryland Man Gets 10 Years in Underage Prostitution Case”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 11 2014.
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/thirty-year-sentence-for-one-of-the-most-prolific-sex-traffickers-virginia-has-ever-seen (2016)
Background on Prostitution in the Area:
- “Four Charged with Soliciting Prostitution”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, February 8 1991.
- “Prostitution Plea Deal Follows Raid at Parlor”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, September 17 2003.
- “Fredericksburg Detective Chief Demoted after Prostitution Sting”, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, June 4 2013.
- https://www.fredericksburg.com/massage-workers-arrested (2019)
- https://www.fauquier.com/sheriff-fredericksburg-woman-charged-with-prostitution-at-fauquier-hotel (2019)
- https://www.fredericksburg.com/local/vice-sting-at-motel-lands-six-arrests (2019)
Documented Violence Against Individuals Engaged in Prostitution in the Area:
State | Virginia |
Type | City |
Population | 28367 |
Location |
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