Erlanger Solicitation Lawyer

You may have heard about solicitation and think it is a criminal charge. In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, there is no crime known as solicitation. However, the criminal law does address solicitation in other parts of the law. Understanding how the laws work together is critical to understanding the exact charges you face if you believe you are charged with solicitation.

Whatever the nature of your prostitution charges, you must take them seriously. Sex workers who face prostitution charges often face more significant punishments than clients since they frequently face multiple charges or have prior convictions for prostitution and related offenses. Clients may not face the same criminal consequences, but it can have devastating social consequences. Simply being charged with soliciting a prostitute can end marriages and careers and devastate someone’s social standing. For many defendants, the most essential function of an Erlanger solicitation lawyer is to try to contain as much information about the charges as possible. Schedule a free, private consultation now to learn more about how our seasoned criminal defense attorneys at Busald Funk Zevely could help you.

Soliciting in Kentucky Law

Solicitation is not a crime in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Instead, it is a crime-adjacent verb that describes encouraging, seeking, requesting, or offering to commit a crime. A sex worker offering to exchange sex for money is soliciting prostitution, and so is a customer asking a sex worker to exchange sex for money. Third parties can also solicit prostitution—pandering involves a third party trying to facilitate the exchange of sex for money.

Kentucky Revised Statutes § 529.010 does not have a provision describing solicitation. However, it does have a provision for advancing prostitution. According to the law, advancing prostitution involves someone other than a prostitute or patron knowingly causing someone to engage in prostitution or procuring or soliciting.

Kentucky Revised Statutes § 529.020 does not mention the word solicit, but it does speak to soliciting behavior, which is offering or asking someone to engage in sexual conduct in exchange for a fee. The fee does not have to be money as long as it is something of value, like goods or services.

In addition to prostitution, solicitation of prostitution could implicate someone in some related offenses, which may be related to human trafficking. If so, those offenses are generally much more severe than prostitution charges, as an experienced Erlanger attorney could explain.

Solicitation Does Not Involve Completing the Offense

A person does not have to complete the offense to be guilty. The crime of solicitation does not require the parties to actually exchange sex for something of value—asking someone to commit that exchange is sufficient to establish the crime.

For practical purposes, this difference means that the Erlanger police can run solicitation sting operations. They can place ads in publications or online or use undercover police officers to get people to agree to pay for sex. Defendants may not ever have any contact with a sex worker, either by phone, text, or in person, and still be guilty of prostitution.

However, there are some facets to the prostitution and pandering statutes that would not apply unless the sex act was completed. For example, the law requires people to submit to HIV testing if they are convicted of certain prostitution offenses and charges them with a crime if they engage in prostitution after diagnosis with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) if there is a risk that they could have transmitted the STD. In pure solicitation cases, there is not a risk of disease transmission.

Schedule a Consultation With an Erlanger Solicitation Attorney

Getting charged with prostitution or any related offense can be socially devastating. However, since the statute allows a conviction on implied agreements to exchange sex for something of value, there can be substantial uncertainty in the charges. An Erlanger solicitation lawyer can fight to protect you from criminal charges and the related repercussions of these accusations. Schedule a consultation to discuss your case and learn about potential remedies. In many instances, a lawyer can get first-time charges based on solicitation dismissed without any consequences.