Another player in the sting was the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement task force, and some critics are saying the stings are less about busting prostitutes and more about JADE getting informants to go after drug dealers. One person, who spoke to C-VILLE only on the condition her name not be used, said she went to the Marriott February 19 and the undercover cop put money on the table. Cops came into the room, pulled her into a side room, threatened that she could lose her kids because of the misdemeanor prostitution charge, and told her it would go away if she agreed to set up three drug dealers and make three buys from each while wearing a wire, she said.
How big a problem is prostitution here? Now arrangements are made online on sites like Backpage and Craigslist. And it was through Backpage that cops, posing as johns and hookers, ran the February sting, making one arrest for prostitution and five for solicitation, according to Albemarle police. One of the solicitation charges was dropped, one defendant received a day suspended sentence, one was amended to profane language over public airways with the defendant sentenced to 90 days with 86 days suspended and one is still going through the system, according to court records.
An act and a price are also part of the arrest equation. So is choosing a condom. Lunsford said if someone wants to be a confidential informant, that would be part of plea bargaining with her office, not with cops.
And she said threatening women arrested for prostitution with the loss of their children is not standard operating procedure. Hopwood disagrees with the characterization that people are threatened with arrest unless they become snitches. He did not clarify when deals were struck with those caught in the February sting. In , police say 15 arrests were made in the course of sex sting activity: six for prostitution, eight for solicitation and one for felony drug possession.
Hopwood said JADE is often involved because prostitution and narcotics trafficking go hand in hand. Criminal defense attorney David Heilberg challenges that assertion, and said JADE is not bringing down kingpins with prostitution stings.
