(Beaver Dam) Some light was shed on apparent sex-trafficking investigations currently underway in Dodge County at an event this week in Beaver Dam. Sheriff Dale Schmidt says he was told as a deputy to “stand-down” when it came to patrolling strip clubs for prostitution because it is a victimless crime. He says that was a message to not do his job, which disturbed him. When he was elected sheriff, Schmidt says he made it a priority to send a detective to training on human trafficking.
“I knew it was an issue we needed to address,” he says “and we just couldn’t turn a blind eye to it anymore.”
Schmidt, speaking at a sex-trafficking awareness program in Beaver Dam, said shortly after the training, the detective teamed up with an investigator in Hartford and, with the assistance of the FBI, arrested a man charged in a federal indictment for alleged sex trafficking in two Dodge County-area strip clubs. The Hardware Store in Clyman and the TNT Gentlemen’s Club, later renamed the Wild Rose, in Lebanon, both closed their doors earlier this year.
He says a lot of evidence was taken and while he cannot elaborate on what was collected, the sheriff says “obviously if the FBI is bringing that kind of resource to a small village in Dodge County you know there’s a problem.”
The presentation Fighting The Giant Of Sex Trafficking hosted by Five Stones Beaver Dam at Harvest Church can be heard here:
