State Task Force Rescues 100 Sex Trafficking Victims, Arrests 160 Perps Including Elementary Teacher

An Ohio human trafficking task force recently arrested and charged 160 people, including an elementary school teacher, a college professor, and a pair of U.S. Air Force members, for attempting to buy sex, the state’s top prosecutor announced earlier this week.

A week-long sting dubbed “Operation Buyer’s Remorse” concluded with the arrest of 149 “johns” seeking to buy sex who were subsequently arrested and charged with engaging in prostitution. 

Two others were arrested for allegedly seeking to have sex with minors and another six were arrested for promoting prostitution. The rest are in jail for illegally possessing narcotics and firearms or because there were outstanding warrants against them, the state’s attorney general reported.

The coordinated sting led by Attorney General Dave Yost’s Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission (OOCIC) was a collaborative effort between eight human trafficking and major crimes task forces.

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“Law enforcement across Ohio teamed up in a concerted effort to stem the demand that fuels human trafficking,” Yost said in a statement Tuesday. “The success of this operation is measured not only by the number of arrests but also by the resources offered to survivors of human trafficking and the intelligence gathered that will propel long-term investigations forward.”

More than 100 human trafficking survivors were also identified and received help from the state’s health care and social service organizations.

“Operation Buyer’s Remorse”  took place from Sept. 25 to Sept. 30 in every corner of the state, including in and around Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, Marietta, and Portsmouth.

Those arrested came from all backgrounds, including EMTs, nurses, educators, retirees, former law enforcement officers, delivery drivers, and U.S. Air Force members. The youngest “John” arrested was 17 and the oldest was 84. 

One man attempted to “buy sex” twice on the same day. After his arrest, the man attempted to buy again in a different area of the state. 

“Operation Buyer’s Remorse was all about targeting the demand. It’s to send a message, ‘You don’t know if you’re contributing to human trafficking when you buy sex in Ohio. Don’t buy sex in Ohio,’” Yost said in a video statement. 

In addition to the 160 arrests, search warrants were conducted at 11 massage parlors suspected of human trafficking activities as part of ongoing, long-term investigations.

Human rights groups have long advocated for lawmakers to decriminalize sex work in Ohio and elsewhere in the U.S. citing research that “anti-trafficking laws make it impossible for victims and witnesses to report exploitation without risking prosecution.”

Meanwhile, as CBN News reported, Regent University School of Law’s Center for Global Justice has launched a clinic to help human trafficking survivors get a fresh start.

Former Virginia prosecutor and assistant director of the Center for Global Justice, Meg Kelsey, recently filed what may have been the first petition in Virginia on behalf of a sex trafficking survivor to erase specific criminal convictions from their record.

Her efforts led to Virginia’s vacatur law which went into effect in July 2021. It essentially provides conviction relief for sex trafficking victims.

“Many people don’t realize that victims of human trafficking are forced to commit an array of crimes and from the legal perspective they do not have the intent to commit the crime,” Kelsey told CBN News. “Human trafficking by its nature is using force, fraud, coercion, manipulation – it is exploitation of another and forcing them to commit an array of crimes.”

She added, “They didn’t have the intent to commit these crimes, and so even when they exit human trafficking, they may be physically free from the predator, the trafficker, this criminal record goes with them.”