New Brunswick, NJ

Categories:

Tactics Used
Auto Seizure ✓
Buyer Arrests ✓
Cameras ✓
Community Service ✓
Employment Loss ✓
Identity Disclosure ✓
IT Based Tactics ✓
John School ✓
Letters ✓
License Suspension ✓
Neighborhood Action ✓
Public Education ✓
Reverse Stings ✓
SOAP Orders ✓
Web Stings ✓

New Brunswick is a city of about 57,000 residents located in Middlesex County, New Jersey.  Prostitution and sex trafficking are well documented in the city and surrounding areas.  For example, in 2013, two juvenile girls, ages 15 and 17, were rescued from an internet prostitution ring after an investigation by the New Brunswick Police Department and the FBI.  In each case, the juveniles were rescued by police with the assistance of the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. Multiple cases of targeted violence against individuals engaged in prostitution (including prostituted persons, sex buyers, pimps, and traffickers) have also been documented. For example, in 2018, a 29-year-old New Brunswick man who served as an enforcer for a network of brothels across the state was convicted of multiple counts of murder and racketeering. A jury in U.S. District Court in Newark convicted the man on two counts murder in aiding racketeering, using a firearm for a violent crime, racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, and conspiracy to harbor aliens. According to documents filed in the case and the evidence at trial, the man served as an enforcer for a prostitution enterprise that helped illegal aliens enter the country and employed them at brothels throughout Cumberland, Essex, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties. The enterprise used threats and acts of violence – including burglary, assaults, and murder – to expand its territory, thwart rival brothels, exact revenge, punish enterprise members and associates who had been disloyal, and silence people they believed were cooperating with law enforcement. The man acted at the direction of the leaders of the enterprise, two New Brunswick residents who oversaw brothels in New Brunswick, Trenton, Orange, Asbury Park, Lakewood, and Bridgeton. The offender told investigators of his involvement in the prostitution ring to county and federal investigators during interviews that directly implicated him in two fatal shootings. In September, 2012, the offender, armed with a firearm, entered a rival brothel house in Trenton with the intent to rob from the house. During the robbery, one victim was shot in the leg and survived, while another was shot and killed. In a second shooting in January 2013, he entered another rival brothel in Trenton armed with a .40-caliber firearm, attempted to rob people there, and when a fight broke out a victim was shot and killed. As part of the enterprise, the man also conspired to conceal and harbor aliens and aided in their interstate transport for use in the prostitution enterprise. The assault and homicide of trafficked and prostituted women has also occurred in local sex trade activity.

Police responses to prostitution in New Brunswick are driven in part by persistent complaints by residents. To combat the consumer-level demand for commercial sex that drives all prostitution and sex trafficking markets, and thus attracting all related crimes, the NBPD has has conducted reverse stings since at least 1992. Officers occasionally release the identities of  the sex buyers arrested during these operations. In 2010, police conducted a raid of two brothels after a month-long investigation. The 2010 raid resulted in 14 arrests of both male sex buyers and prostituted women.  In 2011, the police conducted a raid of three brothels, which resulted in 16 arrests. In August 2016, a Rutgers University police officer arrested a man and a woman “on charges of lewdness, trespassing, and engaging in an act of prostitution,” according to the response to a public information request. Both of the people arrested, a 45-year-old woman and a 33-year-old man, hail from New Brunswick. They were both released “on their own recognizance.” University officials confirmed that a Rutgers University Police Department (RUPD) officer arrested the two, but did not provide the location of the incident.

Key Partners

  • New Brunswick Police Department
  • Rutgers University Police Department

Key Sources

Brothel Raids Resulting in Sex Buyer Arrests:

Other Sex Buyer Arrests:

Street-Level Reverse Stings:

  • “New Brunswick Targets Prostitution by Threatening to Unmask ‘Johns'”, Newark Star-Ledger, September 11 1992.
  • “New Brunswick Prostitution Sting Nets 50”, Newark Star-Ledger, May 12 1993.

Identity Disclosure:

Sex Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation in the Area:

Background on Prostitution in the Area:

Documented Violence Against Individuals Engaged in Prostitution in the Area:

State New Jersey
Type City
Population 55992
Location
Comments are closed.
ABOUT PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US