Texas punishes the two sides of the same deal very differently. Offering or agreeing to take money for sex is prostitution, a Class B misdemeanor on a first charge. Offering or agreeing to pay is solicitation of prostitution, and since September 1, 2021, that’s a state jail felony even the first time. Neither charge requires any sex to happen, or any money to change hands. The agreement is the crime. Most of these arrests in Houston come out of undercover stings, from online ads and hotel room setups, and the case usually comes down to what was actually said on the recording and in the texts.
Call (713) 664-4000. Everything you tell us is confidential. If you haven’t been charged yet but think you’re under investigation, call before you talk to anyone about it.
Prostitution-related charges and penalties in Texas
| Charge | What the State has to prove | Punishment |
|---|---|---|
| Prostitution (Penal Code § 43.02) | Knowingly offering or agreeing to receive a fee to engage in sexual conduct | Class B misdemeanor, up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. Class A with one or two priors. State jail felony with three or more |
| Solicitation of prostitution (§ 43.021) | Knowingly offering or agreeing to pay a fee to engage in sexual conduct | State jail felony, 180 days to 2 years and up to a $10,000 fine. Third-degree felony with a prior. Second-degree felony if the other person was under 18, or was represented as or believed to be under 18 |
| Promotion of prostitution (§ 43.03) | Receiving money under an agreement to share in prostitution proceeds, or soliciting someone to have sex with another person for pay | Third-degree felony. Second degree with a prior. First degree if the prostitution involved someone under 18, even if you didn’t know their age |
| Online promotion (§§ 43.031, 43.041) | Running a website or app, or posting content, with intent to promote prostitution | Third-degree felony, or second degree with a prior or a minor. Second degree when five or more people are involved, and first degree with a prior or two or more minors |
| Aggravated promotion (§ 43.04) | Owning, financing, managing or supervising a prostitution enterprise with two or more prostitutes | First-degree felony, 5 to 99 years or life |
| Compelling prostitution (§ 43.05) | Causing someone to commit prostitution by force, threats, coercion or fraud, or causing a child or a disabled person to do it by any means | First-degree felony |
Two details in that table catch people. First, a prior doesn’t have to be a conviction. A guilty or no contest plea in exchange for deferred adjudication counts as a prior for enhancement, even after the case was dismissed at the end (§§ 43.02(e), 43.021(c)). A deferred on a first prostitution case turns the second one into a Class A, and a deferred on a first solicitation case makes the next one a third-degree felony. Second, a solicitation within 1,000 feet of a school, or of a school function or UIL event while it’s going on, is bumped up a full level (§ 43.021(b-1)).
Stings that advertise someone under 18
The second-degree version of solicitation doesn’t need a real minor. It applies if the person really was under 18, even if you had no idea. And it applies when the person was only “represented to” you as under 18, even if you didn’t believe it. Some sting operations post an ad for an adult, then have the undercover officer mention in the texts that she’s 17. That changes the charge from a state jail felony to a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison, and that’s the version of solicitation that puts you on the sex offender registry (Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 62.001(5)(B-1)). Deferred adjudication doesn’t get you out of it. Aggravated promotion and compelling prostitution require registration too. If your case involves an age claim, exactly what the officer said, and when, is the first thing we pin down. Our page on solicitation of prostitution covers the buyer’s side in more detail.
How we defend prostitution and solicitation charges
The agreement. The State has to prove an actual offer or agreement, and it has to cover both sexual conduct and a fee. Undercover officers are trained to get both on the recording, because vague texts and slang don’t prove it by themselves. Neither does a price for a “massage” or for someone’s time. We get the full text thread, the ad, the audio and the body camera video, not the officer’s summary of them. Gaps between the report and the recording are where a lot of these cases fall apart.
Entrapment. Posting an ad and waiting for a reply isn’t entrapment. Texas law says conduct that “merely” offers the opportunity doesn’t count. But when an officer pushes past that, with repeated pressure after you said no, or persuasion that would get a law-abiding person to go along, you may have an entrapment defense (Penal Code § 8.06). We can ask the judge to throw the case out on that basis at a pretrial hearing (Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 28.01), and if the judge says no, the jury can still hear it.
Trafficking and coercion. It’s a defense to prostitution that the person did it because they were a victim of human trafficking or compelled prostitution (§ 43.02(d)). If you were convicted of prostitution, or got deferred for it, because someone was trafficking or forcing you, a separate law lets you petition to seal it a year after the case is done (Gov’t Code § 411.0728). You have to show you did it only because you were a victim, and if police or prosecutors asked for your help against the trafficker, that you gave it. We raise both when the facts are there, and we handle the conversation with prosecutors carefully, since the people responsible are often still around.
Promotion cases. These are built from phones, bank and payment app records, hotel records and the testimony of people who were arrested with you. Roommates, drivers, boyfriends and family members get charged on the theory that any money they touched was a share of the proceeds, and the State has to prove an agreement to share. Watch who talks. A person involved in the offense can be forced to testify with immunity, and unlike most accomplice testimony, it doesn’t need corroboration to support a conviction (§ 43.06).
Keeping it off your record
The best outcome is a dismissal, and the next best is a pretrial intervention program that ends in one. A dismissal after pretrial intervention can be expunged once the case is closed. Other dismissals can be expunged too, but depending on why the case was dropped, you may have to wait until the limitations period runs, which is two years on a misdemeanor and three on a felony solicitation. How the dismissal is worded matters, and we make sure it’s written to get you there. See our page on expunctions in Houston.
Deferred adjudication is a weaker result here than in most misdemeanors. Besides counting as a prior, it can’t be sealed automatically. You have to petition, and only after waiting two years from discharge on a misdemeanor or five on a felony (Gov’t Code § 411.0725(e)). A new conviction or deferred adjudication for anything other than a fine-only traffic ticket, at any point from the plea through the end of the waiting period, wipes out your eligibility, and the judge still decides whether to grant it. Some of these charges, like solicitation of someone under 18, can never be sealed at all. A conviction is worse. A felony solicitation conviction can’t be sealed, ever. A misdemeanor prostitution conviction can sometimes be sealed after two years, but unless the sentence was probation, the judge has to deny it on finding the offense was sexual in nature, and prostitution is easy to see that way. For people charged with selling, counties the size of Harris generally have to offer a special court program, which takes the prosecutor’s consent and can end with the record sealed (Gov’t Code ch. 126). Our page on orders of nondisclosure covers that process. If you aren’t a U.S. citizen, selling or promoting prostitution can make you inadmissible based on the conduct alone, even without a conviction, and a solicitation conviction can cause its own immigration problems. The plea has to be built around your status before anyone signs anything.
Charged with prostitution or solicitation in Houston? Call Blass Law
Jay Blass Cohen has defended criminal cases in Houston since 2009 and has never worked for the prosecution. We’ll get the recording and the texts before we talk to you about any offer, and we’ll tell you whether the State can prove what it’s charged. See some of our case results. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Call (713) 664-4000. If you were arrested in a sting this week, call now, while the ad and the officer’s messages can still be preserved.
Related Charges
Reviewed by Jay Blass Cohen, founder of Blass Law PLLC, ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist, certified Drug Recognition Expert, and SFST instructor, serving Houston since 2009. This article is general information, not legal advice for your situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.