Even though solicitation isn’t sexual in itself, soliciting someone for sex is a crime. Criminal solicitation includes requesting, demanding or encouraging someone to engage in criminal conduct. Usually, this means the solicitation of prostitution, but it can apply to other kinds of cases.
There are two elements to solicitation. The first is that the person must have requested someone to engage in a criminal act. Second, the person must have the intention to engage in criminal activity with that person. Sometimes, the other person doesn’t even have to receive the request to have a person found guilty of solicitation. For instance, if a driver is sitting at a corner waiting to solicit a prostitute, that person could be accused of solicitation even if the prostitute never addresses him directly. Usually, that’s not enough evidence, though, and you can avoid conviction since there’s no proof you intended to solicit someone at all.
What’s important to know is that no crime actually has to be committed for you to face charges for solicitation. As long as you intended to act on your request, that’s enough for the police to arrest and charge you with a crime. There are defenses to the arrest that you can talk with your attorney about, like challenging the allegation that you intended to act on the request.
Our website has more information on solicitation and sexual offenses, so you can learn more about how to defend yourself if you’re accused of one of these crimes. Whether you’re guilty or innocent, you deserve to have your case tried fairly.