Minnesota appeals court: Texting a sex worker isn’t ‘public’ solicitation – By Mike Mullen (City Pages) / March 17 2020
Cases against four men in Willmar have been dismissed, twice, because the inside of your phone isn’t a public place.
In the early months of 2019, cops in Willmar hatched a ruse to catch men soliciting a prostitute.
From January through March, at least four men responded to online ads for a woman named “Brittany,” who offered half-hour or hourly rates for “sexual contact,” ranging from $80 to $140. She asked each of the four men to meet her at a hotel, but first to stop at a gas station before to buy her a treat such as a candy bar or a can of pop. Each did.
When each fellow arrived at Brittany’s hotel room, they found waiting cops, and got arrested.
Somehow this simple little trap, and the aggressive prosecutions that followed, has proven too clever by half. Cases against them were dismissed, first by a district court, and then by a three-judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which ruled Monday the accusations against them didn’t rise to the level of a gross misdemeanor.
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