Newington is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, located eight miles south of downtown Hartford.  As of the 2020 census, the population was about 30,500. Prostitution, sex trafficking, and related crimes occurring in towns along the Berlin Turnpike in Connecticut – including in Newington – have been well documented for decades. Examples of local prostitution cases incoude: in November, 2012, a man and a woman faced prostitution charges after an undercover operation by police. Each was charged with prostitution, with the arrests stemming from separate crimes witnessed by plainclothes officers during the operation.  In April, 2018, an undercover operation by the Newington Police Department on the Berlin Turnpike resulted in the arrests of three women for prostitution and drug charges after offering to engage in sexual conduct in exchange for a fee.

In their efforts to combat sex trafficking and prostitution, local agencies have arrested sex buyers and publicly disclosed their identities.  For example, in September, 2008, Newington police arrested four people, including a 17-year-old South Windsor girl and her accomplices, in a prostitution event that turned into a robbery. Police said an 18 year old man contacted an “escort service” he found on Craigslist and arranged a meeting for sex at a Berlin Turnpike motel. They engaged in sexual activities, but then the man said he didn’t have the money to pay. The girl’s two associates, who helped arrange the meeting, were waiting outside the hotel room and demanded the money. They assaulted him and took his wallet with his debit card, and then forced him to give up his pin number and tried to get cash out of an ATM. The sex buyer/victim, on his way back to Hartford, flagged down police officers to tell them he had been robbed. The two accomplices were charged with second-degree promoting prostitution, conspiracy to commit second-degree promoting prostitution, second-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit second-degree robbery, possession of less than four ounces of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. The South Windsor girl was charged with prostitution, second-degree promoting prostitution, and conspiracy to promote prostitution. The robbery victim and sex buyer was charged with “patronizing a prostitute” and his identity was included in news reports.

In October, 2017, two people were arrested after they allegedly robbed a man who patronized a prostituted woman at a Berlin Turnpike motel in Newington. The victim of the alleged robbery called police  to report he had been robbed by a man with a handgun at the motel. Officers arrived to find the victim with injuries as if he had been in a fight. The man told police he had been robbed by a man when he had returned to the motel night to retrieve his wallet after leaving it with a woman who had agreed to have sex with him for $60 the evening before. When he arrived at the motel , a man appeared and shoved the sex buyer back into the hotel room, implied he had a gun and told the man to empty his pockets. The man tried to escape but was then assaulted before managing to escape, ran to the lobby to call 911. The woman was charged with conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery. The assailant was charged with first-degree robbery, sixth-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit both counts, disorderly conduct, third-degree assault, threatening and first-degree unlawful restraint. The robbery victim was charged with “patronizing a prostitute.”