What the charge is called here
Solicitation is the word most people search, and many states use it. New York instead charges the person paying, or agreeing to pay, with patronizing a person for prostitution, and treats the person selling under a separate offense. The case becomes far more serious if the other person is, or is claimed to be, under age, and those matters call for immediate attention. Many selling-side cases in New York are handled in courts that focus on services and on identifying trafficking. Other states draw these lines in their own ways, so a charge from elsewhere has to be read under that state's law.
How stings tend to be built
Operations usually rest on the messages exchanged, any recordings, and what the officer says was agreed, so the exact words matter. Tell your lawyer everything that was sent, and do not delete the account or the conversation, however understandable the impulse. Entrapment is a narrow defense with demanding requirements, and simply being offered an opportunity by an officer usually does not meet it. What is more often at issue is what was actually asked for or agreed to, and what the records show about who proposed what. If your phone was seized, ask your lawyer before trying to reach its cloud accounts from another device.
Questions beyond the courtroom
For many people the larger worries are a spouse, an employer, a professional license, or immigration status. A non-citizen should have any proposed disposition reviewed for its immigration effect before agreeing to it, because offenses involving prostitution can carry consequences that are not obvious. Licensed professionals may have reporting obligations of their own. In a first meeting we look at the paperwork you were given, the next court date, and what you were told at the scene. We also go through what can be done to limit the effect on your record, recognizing that the prosecutor and the court decide how a case resolves.
