On January 23, Lamorris Bernard Lowman, a thirty-seven-year-old man from Pennsylvania, entered a plea of not guilty for engaging in prostitution and possessing criminal tools, both misdemeanor offenses. A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for March 31.
Last December, Lowman was arrested in East Palestine, Ohio following an undercover investigation conducted by local law enforcement and the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force. Lowman allegedly responded to an undercover online advertisement on a known prostitution website and arranged a meeting with a woman for paid sex acts. Lowman arrived at the location in a work van that he was driving as an employee of an agency that serves clients with developmental disabilities. There was reportedly a non-verbal male individual in the van at the time of this incident. An affidavit filed in Columbiana County Municipal Court states that Lowman allegedly told authorities he intended to leave the individual unattended in the vehicle while he entered the residence for the arranged sexual encounter.
Under Ohio Law, a charge of Engaging in Prostitution involves the exchange of anything of value for a sex act, a first-degree misdemeanor, while Possessing Criminal Tools involves the possession or control of items like phones, condoms, or vehicles with intent for criminal use, typically a first-degree misdemeanor. Court filings allege that Lowman had the money intended for the transaction as well as a phone used to communicate with the undercover officer.
Authorities have not indicated whether additional charges may be filed, and no information has been released regarding potential employment consequences related to Lowman’s role as a caregiver.
Online platforms have become one of the primary mechanisms through which sex buyers purchase sexual content or arrange in-person meetings for commercial sex. These platforms often conceal coercion, economic pressure, and third-party control, making exploitation more difficult to detect. As in this case, online advertisements and social media platforms are used to facilitate the sale of sex by expanding access for sex buyers.
Over the past two decades—particularly due to the expansion of smartphones and social media—the internet has dramatically reshaped the scale and accessibility of the commercial sex trade. Because the sex trade is driven by the laws of supply and demand, the explosion of online advertising and digital communication tools has increasingly contributed to increased sex trafficking. What once required physical presence now requires only a phone and internet connection. Prostitution websites remain a central hub, but traffickers also use mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and messaging apps to recruit, groom, advertise, and control victims.
Data underscores the scope of this shift. Between 2015-2017, case data records about 845 potential victims recruited on internet platforms. More recent federal data further show that the internet ranked among the top five locations for victim recruitment in sex trafficking cases from 2019 through 2023. The internet also remains a primary channel for traffickers to solicit buyers of commercial sex, with 59 percent of federal trafficking cases in 2023 involving internet-based solicitation. Social media platforms allow traffickers to exploit anonymity, create fake profiles, and precisely target individuals based on age, location, economic vulnerability, or emotional need. As the commercial sex trade continues to move online, vulnerability expands. Anyone with a phone, particularly minors, can be targeted. These tools make social media an ideal venue for deceptive job offers, modeling opportunities, or romantic relationships that can quickly escalate into sexual exploitation.
Combatting commercial sexual exploitation requires holding sex buyers accountable and identifying and supporting victims. The CSE Institute thus endorses and supports the adoption of the Equality Model which promotes: (1) the decriminalization of the person who is selling sex, (2) criminalization of sex buyers and facilitators, (3) educating the public about the harms of prostitution, and (4) funded, holistic exit services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
This model recognizes that individuals in prostitution are often operating under conditions of vulnerability, coercion, or exploitation, and should not be treated as criminals. Instead, accountability is placed on sex buyers and traffickers, whose actions create and sustain demand within the sex trade. By shifting legal and social consequences away from prostituted persons and toward those who drive exploitation, the model seeks to reduce harm, prevent trafficking, and support long-term pathways out of exploitation.
The CSE Institute commends the efforts of the Columbiana County Prosecutor’s Office, as well as the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force and the East Palestine Police Department for this arrest and for their continued work to address sexual exploitation in the region and across the country.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates on this matter.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.