Monroe Charter Township is a township of approximately 15,000 residents, located in southeast Michigan near the Ohio border. In response to a spike in prostitution activity in the township’s truck stops, Michigan State Police conducted a series of street-level reverse stings in rest areas along I-75 in the early 1980s. Operations typically employed an undercover female state trooper who served as a decoy. When men attempted to solicit sex from her, they were promptly arrested. The sex buyers’ names and other identifying information were not made public.

In September 2018, a former Monroe County district judge pleaded guilty to four counts of misconduct in office following his March arrest for hiring prostituted women. The Michigan Attorney General announced the plea to the four felony counts, which each carry five-year maximum prison sentences, and the offender admitted to the facts in the affidavit during his plea hearing in Monroe County Circuit Court. A Washtenaw County Circuit Court Judge heard the case after Monroe County judges recused themselves. The judge resigned in April 2018 after he was initially charged with one felony count of transporting a person for the purposes of prostitution, as well as four misdemeanor counts of hiring women for the purpose of prostitution following an investigation by the Michigan State Police. The investigation started after state police were told of “prostitution-relate­d activities” at a Monroe Township hotel. Investigators learned a person matching the man’s description met women at the hotel for sex in exchange for money, arranged via accounts on the dating app Tinder, dating website OkCupid, and on Facebook.