Mount Jackson is a town of less than 2,000 residents, located in Shenandoah County, Virginia near Winchester.  Law enforcement officials in the town have reported an increase in prostitution activity in recent years.

In late March 2014, officers from the Mount Jackson, New Market, and Winchester Police Departments, with support from the Shenandoah County Sheriff Office’s Northwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force, conducted an anti-prostitution operation that resulted in the arrest of “half a dozen” individuals for prostitution-related offenses. According to reports, “the operation involved the use of a confidential informant who advertised services on an internet website,” but the SCSO “would not disclose the name of the website nor explain where the suspected johns would know to look for these services. The suspects then contacted the female informant and  set up a time for their rendezvous. When the suspects arrived at the hotel, law enforcement agents moved in to make the arrests.” The identities of all but one of the johns (a Winchester public official) were not disclosed to the public initially, but in May 2014, they were reported for the men who pleaded “no contest” to the charges. In April 2014, the identities of another set of prostitution arrestees were released to the public.  The johns who pleaded no contest were sentenced to six months suspended jail term, one year unsupervised probation, and a $500 fine.