In Florida, statutes specify sex offenses for those who are found to have exposed themselves in public. Those laws are being used to target and entrap gay men in Palm Beach, according to a South Gay Florida News investigative report.

Police go undercover all of the time to investigate alleged crimes. In terms of sex crimes, undercover officers are often used to investigate solicitation-related crimes. However, the report shows that officers may have crossed the line into entrapment when it came to hundreds of arrests of homosexual men.

According to the news investigation, only four out of the more than 300 police reports studied involved two men. The rest, they said involved a citizen and an undercover officer. According to a representative of one of the men targeted in the report, the officers "approach, lure and entice guys who are sitting alone in their car, start a sexually charged conversation and then look for a way to arrest them."

In one instance, a man stopped in a public restroom to wash his face. He observed two people he described as acting strangely. He left the restroom after suspecting that the two men were muggers. In fact, they were undercover officers who later charged the young man with loitering, accusing him of seeking indecent public acts.

News investigators say that the "sting operation" conducted by two officers began between the years of 2005 and 2007 and ran until 2010. During that time, the two officers made at least 600 arrests of homosexual men they sought out in public parks. Officers are supposed to uphold the rights of individuals, but many times they may become overzealous in their need to make an arrest.

Source: South Florida Gay News, "Cops Accused of Entrapping Gay Men," Jan. 11, 2012